The Timer Game
Susan Arnout Smith
A searingly page-turning, totally gripping, rollercoaster of a read that will appeal to readers of PJ Tracy and Harlan Coben (and anyone who loves ‘24’ and the ‘CSI’ series).Grace Descanso is a young single mother working for CSI San Diego. It's a demanding job – Grace struggles to spend as much time as she would like with her 5-year-old daughter Katie. But when a routine crime scene turns into a bloodbath, Grace realises that someone is after her. Then Katie is snatched from their house, the place where they should both be safest. Katie is all she’s got – and Grace hasn't got much time to work out why and where she’s been taken. Welcome to ‘The Timer Game’.
SUSAN ARNOUT SMITH
The Timer Game
DEDICATION (#ulink_b5616d38-3a89-5406-a4fc-3b5cef7bdfb5)
For my husband, Alfred Toulon Smith, with love and gratitude – every day with you is a blessing.
EPIGRAPH (#ulink_5bde9af1-b16e-55aa-8d63-912dc71d18c3)
Beware the fury of a patient man.
– JOHN DRYDEN, Absalom and Achitophel
CONTENTS
Cover (#u884b2e40-a44d-59d7-90aa-7a8cbcef070d)
Title Page (#u332ed8e9-f7a7-5c02-9cc9-40a693114b3a)
Dedication (#u05bf6fa6-1c3e-5558-893a-1925df3c2f8a)
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About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
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ONE (#ulink_82d23d0b-0208-5856-9fdf-3fe4f27e61f0)
Sunday
‘If somebody’s following us, would you know?’
Grace Descanso glanced at her daughter as they squeezed past an inflatable ghost at the entrance to Party Savers. Katie’s dark eyes studied her gravely. She was almost five, small for her age, her honey-colored curls bouncing in two high ponytails under a Padres baseball cap.
‘You mean right now this second?’
Grace kept her voice neutral but her gaze shifted to the salesclerk ringing up a line of customers and a group of teens clustered by a rack of spiders. The store was busy. Nothing jumped out.
‘Why, honey? Do you think somebody is?’ Grace picked up a shopping basket.
Katie shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I finally decided. I want to be a doctor.’
‘When you grow up?’ Katie shifted gears at dizzying speed, and Grace trailed after her, trying to keep up.
Katie slowed at a rack of pumpkin lights and kept moving. ‘No, silly. For Halloween. That way I can wear that thing of yours.’
‘Stethoscope,’ Grace said. She blinked. ‘I’m not sure I can find it, Katie. I haven’t seen it for a long time. You could be a princess. They get to wear sparkly pink.’
The cell phone in her pocket rang and Grace’s first instinct was to ignore it. She’d put it on High and Vibrate and now it whirred in her pocket like an angry bee. It was Sunday, her first real day off in almost a month from the San Diego Police crime lab, and she wanted to spend it with Katie.
Katie cut a look at the phone and walked ahead down the aisle. They shared the same dark Portuguese eyes and angular grace, but Katie was tawny as a golden cat. Next to Grace’s ivory skin and dark hair, Katie always looked sun-kissed and radiantly healthy. Sleeping helped, too, Grace figured. She hadn’t been doing much of that lately.
They were both in shorts; for October in San Diego it was humid, and the store smelled of dust and suntan oil. The phone stopped ringing as Katie paused at a rack of fuzzy bat pencils, picking up one and examining it closely.
Katie’s birthday was coming up Saturday, the day before Halloween, and Grace didn’t have a lot of money to spend on treat bags. It embarrassed her that she was so tight for cash, but she was a single mother with no margin for mistakes, living in the house she’d grown up in, paying off her brother for his half, shoring up the leaky roof and splintery steps, repairing the gargling refrigerator and wheezing car, trying hard not to completely lose her mind.
‘Those are fun,’ Grace offered. And affordable, she added silently.
Katie nodded and put the pencil back in the rack.
The phone rang again and Katie looked at her. ‘You’re not going to get that?’
There was something tight in her young voice, and Grace knew that even at her age, Katie knew how much their fragile security depended on this job, on things going well.
Grace flipped open her cell and recognized Dispatch. She smiled reassuringly at Katie.
‘Grace Descanso.’
A man’s voice crackled over the line, his voice unrecognizable.
‘I can’t hear you.’
In Grace’s ear, the voice was irritable, distracted. ‘Sergeant Treble, headquarters. We got one. Let’s roll.’
‘I’m not on rotation this week.’
She transferred the phone to her other ear, watching her daughter. Katie was counting out seven pink erasers in the shape of porpoises and putting them into the shopping basket, along with a set of fake teeth.
‘Hell you are; you’re secondary after Larry and he’s not answering his beeper.’
‘You’re working the wrong sheet.’
‘I don’t give a rat’s ass, sort it out Monday. You answered the phone, you’re It.’
‘I’m not on duty,’ she insisted.
‘Yeah, but I say you are.’
She swallowed her rage. The lab was set up so someone was on call a week at a time. Her week wasn’t there yet; it started Tuesday morning at seven-thirty. She’d been pulling overtime in the lab lately, processing two homicides and a particularly messy frat party that had left one participant with his little toe shot off by a naked, unknown assailant wearing a Bart Simpson head mask. She had been looking forward to this free day with Katie.
On the phone Treble was saying, ‘Patrol responded to a complaint, usual deal. High traffic, bad smell. The duty judge is sending through the warrant.’
‘We don’t process meth busts, you know that. Call the DEA.’ The Drug Enforcement Agency handled cleanup in San Diego.
‘Already ahead of you, Grace. These scrotbags left a bucket of blood in the living room. No body.’
‘And you want to know if it’s enough blood for somebody to have died.’
‘Doesn’t look like a nosebleed.’
He paused, and Grace could hear the scorn dripping from his voice. ‘Or I could just run it by Sid. Your level of cooperation.’
Grace grew very still. It had taken her six months to get back on CSI rotation after an inquiry into slopped samples and falsified data, an inquiry that had cleared Grace but left her feeling vulnerable and defensive, and after five years on the job, needing to prove herself all over again. She didn’t want to find herself stuck again in the lab. CSI meant overtime and that meant money, but she needed to plan things like a general, not be ambushed in the party-favor aisle.
‘You’re really an asshole, you know that?’ Grace said it low into the phone, so Katie wouldn’t hear.
‘Save it, Grace, I’m already married.’
‘Who’s the DL?’ She fished in her purse for a pad and pencil.
‘Lewin. Not a duty lieutenant, a sergeant. Western substation. He’s at the site.’
Katie looked at her, comprehension and resignation flooding her eyes, and Grace realized in that instant how much the day had meant to Katie, too.
‘What’s the Thomas page?’ Grace said into the phone.
Katie blinked and looked away.
It was a shady street in Ocean Beach, with shaggy palms and houses flecked in DayGlo colors, just close enough to the ocean to smell of salt water and kelp. The house stood halfway down the block, cordoned with yellow police tape. A ripped sofa sat in the front yard and trash clotted the tall weeds. Bedsheets obscured the front windows and a faded sticker clung to the front door: NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH! CRIMINAL BEWARE!
A carved pumpkin adorned the junky yard and Grace felt a pang of guilt. Katie had been after her for weeks to buy one. She kept putting it off, and here even unkempt lowlifes living in squalor still made quality time for their kids.
A crowd was starting to gather as uniforms hustled three gaunt men out the door, hands cuffed, and pushed them into waiting patrol cars, followed by a wailing toddler on the hip of a Child Protective Services officer.
Grace pulled into a space vacated by a patrol car and locked up, the list already going in her brain on why this was a better career path than her last choice. You see dead bodies but you don’t make them dead, that’s a big one.
She reached into her trunk, rooted past Katie’s T-ball bag, a dirty soccer sock, and a spilled carton of Legos, and lifted out her evidence collection kit and pearly white Tyvek protective gear. You’re offered shapelier work clothes in attractive designer colors.
The front door opened and Detective Sergeant Vince Lewin emerged, flipping his mask off his face so it dangled on the front of his Tyvek suit. Plodding down the steps, he looked like a scowling Pillsbury Dough Boy. He gripped a cage covered in tight mesh wiring and held it as far away from his body as possible. A large snake banged against the wire, fangs bared. You sometimes get to interact with nature.
‘Show’s over. That’s it. It’s done.’ Lewin handed the cage to a uniform who stowed it in the back of a patrol car.
Lewin was in his midforties, with graying hair and a permanent crease between his eyes, made more pronounced by his scowl. Grace had worked with him maybe a dozen times, and the combative edge he carried into every conversation made her instantly tense.
‘Dr. D. Takes forty minutes to get here.’
Grace took a slow, irritable breath. ‘Thirty-nine. I clocked it.’
‘I expected Larry.’
‘Yeah, well, I had better things to do, too, Vince, but they rescheduled my kidney dialysis so I could come.’
‘You’re kidding, right?’
She pulled on her Tyvek suit and looked past him toward the house. ‘What’d you find?’
‘A shitload of nasty. Two pit bulls, assault rifles, six snakes – big ones.’ He gestured toward the cage. ‘That guy was booby-trapped to the kitchen cabinet. Missed him the first time around.’
‘That inspires confidence.’
‘I’m not paid to hold your hand, Grace.’ He was still grumpy about the dialysis joke. Too late, she remembered his mother-in-law had died of renal failure.
A balding man in his midtwenties detached from an assistant DA in the crowd and trotted over. He was wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a Tyvek suit in a muddy tan color that signaled he worked for the DEA. Agents apparently hadn’t gotten the memo about looking spiffy. The suit looked a size too small.
‘You guys met? The new DEA chemist Chip Page; Chip, Dr. D.’
‘Grace Descanso,’ she corrected pleasantly. She pulled on a bootee.
‘Yeah, fine. Grace Descanso. She’s been a police forensic biologist for – I don’t know, what?’
‘Five.’
‘Five years. Sol retired early and moved to Florida so we got Chip,’ Lewin answered her unasked question and tapped his clipboard, as if the small effort at pleasantry exhausted him. ‘Set to live here the next few days?’
‘Sure,’ Grace lied.
‘Then welcome to amateur hour. These guys didn’t go to the Cordon Bleu.’
A taco van turned onto the street and the driver grinned at Grace and gave a jaunty thumbs-up as if he knew her. She took a good look at him as she pulled on the other bootee.
He had a narrow face and glassy eyes and a thatch of black hair and seemed to be about her age, thirty-two. The taco van veered – he’d been staring at her rather than the road ahead – and the uniform on crowd control bellowed at him to move it along. Things could be worse. She could be driving a rancid food truck, trying to stay one step ahead of the Department of Environmental Health.
‘Heard some bozo blew up a trailer park in Reno drying down acetone in an oven.’ Lewin pulled on a second set of gloves and passed the box to Chip. ‘They found body parts in trees. Chip, any questions, ask. Don’t want to send you home in a box. Several.’
Chip blanched and Lewin looked away, satisfied. Grace smiled at Chip in what she hoped was a reassuring way.
‘You were really a doctor?’ Chip asked. It was a blurt. ‘What happened?’
‘Double glove, Chip.’ Grace passed him the box again, her good humor gone.
The crowd drifted off and stationed themselves in nearby yards, talking quietly. Vince Lewin turned back to Grace and Chip, all business.
‘Chip, you got residue but nothing exciting, no pounds of product. Grace, work your magic. There are enough spatters in there to keep a busload of Rorschach head shrinks happy for a year. The house is sealed and it’s going to stay that way. We’re clear on phosgene. We’re gonna dust, collect. Be smart and stay alive. Ready?’
Grace cinched the hood of her suit and attached her bug mask – an air-purifying respirator – and followed him up the stairs, Chip lagging behind her. Grace let him go past her through the door. An armed patrol officer stood at the door, feet spread, another one at the perimeter, and Grace remembered hearing how they’d once busted somebody who’d wandered into a meth house after the task force had secured it. He’d come to do a buy, realizing too late that Joe and Jim and Rudy were already downtown rolling their fingers across ink pads and that the nice man inside with the wide smile wasn’t selling anything except a felony conviction.
The interior was dark, windows covered in duct tape and sheets, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. A dark stain saturated a sliver of ratty carpet and spattered a nearby wall.
‘Chip, don’t come near this, okay?’
She squatted down carefully out of reach of the stain and roved her flashlight beam over the wall. The drops curled like exclamation marks in a hurry, which meant that whoever was bleeding had been moving. Or blood had scattered from a weapon that was moving. Or maybe it had been an earthquake and the wall had been moving. Something had moved, and whatever it was, it meant work on her end, and a lot of it.
‘Lovely.’ She’d never see Katie again.
Grace stood up. Already her arms inside the Tyvek were damp as boiled hot dogs. The suit sealed her like a deli chicken. Too bad she hadn’t wrapped herself first in secret herbs and cellophane; she could lose six inches in an hour. She wondered if women losing inches in a spa wrap suddenly exploded like a hot sausage the instant they drank a glass of water. She had to stop thinking about food.
‘Any ideas?’ Lewin stood at her elbow.
‘Yeah, Vince, somebody bleeding was in here once.’
‘Ha-ha, very funny.’
She turned her attention to the rest of the living room. The floor was littered with asthma inhalers, so thick it looked like an army of oversized, hard-shelled insects. Bedding lay tangled across a stained mattress. A child’s dump truck climbed a hill of fertilizer. A meth pipe tilted out the toy cab of the truck. Matchbook strips, ripped down to the red phosphorus, were scattered across a table, along with boxes of diet pills and stiffened coffee filters. Red, as if they’d been dipped in blood.
‘What do you think?’ Lewin looked at Chip. His voice was tinny in the mask.
‘Nazi method,’ Chip said, thinking it was the same cooking the efficient Germans had used during the war, to keep the troops awake and ready.
Lewin made a buzzer sound. ‘Wrong.’ He looked at Grace.
‘Red phosphorus reduction method,’ Grace said. She turned to Chip, shrugging it off. ‘Nazi method’s lithium and ammonia gas; it’s white powder.’
Lewin looked disappointed that she’d gotten it right. He turned toward the kitchen, motioning them to follow. Under his mask, Chip’s face was a pasty gray and dots of sweat sprouted on his upper lip.
‘You okay?’ She stopped walking. ‘Chip?’
‘Claustrophobic. Always have been. Even when I was a kid.’ Chip’s voice was muffled in the mask. He shrugged, embarrassed. ‘Don’t tell Sergeant Lewin.’
She nodded. She could tell by the way his hand kept going to it that Chip carried a gun. Most criminalists opted against it; it was bulky and unnecessary. Police controlled the scene and afforded protection, but occasionally Grace ran across a wannabe cop. They always carried.
Her bootees made a snicking sound on the filthy floor. Pyrex pans littered the stove, and a jug of what looked like denatured alcohol lay on the grimy table. The cabinets were empty except for lighter fluid, Drano, duct tape, and a half-opened box of Froot Loops.
Chip was swallowing, his face shiny with sweat. ‘Okay to take off my mask?’
Lewin’s head shot up from inspecting residue in a pan. ‘You mean safe? Yeah, but –’
The rest of the sentence died as Chip tore off his mask and screamed. His eyes bulged and he shoved Lewin out of the way and raced for the paint-blistered kitchen door, yanking it open and pelting down the steps into the backyard. They could hear him taking great shuddering gasps.
‘Stupid kid,’ Vince said.
Grace shrugged, looking around. ‘He’ll learn. They don’t call it cat for nothing.’
Methamphetamine cooking smelled like cat urine, if the cat were as big as a town car and the box hadn’t been changed in months.
Outside, Chip uttered a sharp strangled cry that cut off abruptly into silence.
‘I’ll check out the other rooms. Leave the sheets up. I’m going to document the blood spatter.’
‘Have at it.’ Lewin put down the search warrant, along with the hazardous-waste forms. ‘I gotta go babysit.’
‘Hey, Vince – he’s a chickie. Go easy on him.’
Lewin grimaced through his mask and stepped out the kitchen door. Grace looked around. It was going to cost the state a bundle getting it cleaned up.
Something large slapped against the house and slid to the ground. It was a sound like a piece of rotten fruit hitting clumsily and hard. She straightened, listening. Silence. A thin, reedy whistling grew in the silence, followed by a muffled moan.
She swallowed. ‘Vince?’
The whistling escalated, the sound wickering through the air like a broken electrical circuit, and the hair on the back of her neck pricked. She moved silently to the kitchen door and down the stairs, yanking off the breathing mask, her head light without the weight.
It was a small yard with rusted cars up on blocks, obscuring the alley. She stared blankly. There was supposed to be a uniform out back protecting them, just like there was out front, but if he was there, she couldn’t see him.
From deep in the yard came a bubbling sound. She’d only heard that rattle in ER and it didn’t sound any better now. She eased around the hulk of a car. Chip Page lay clutching his throat, his fingers slick with surging blood. He stared up at her mutely, his eyes wide and terrified, his glasses askew.
She could see into the alley now. A uniformed officer lay facedown in a pool of blood, his legs at odd angles. Blocking the alley was the taco van, its motor running.
Her throat closed and she dropped to her knees. Chip’s windpipe had been sliced. His mouth opened soundlessly. Establish an airway. Make sure the victim is breathing. His eyes flicked to a spot behind her and she looked over her shoulder.
Pain exploded across her jaw as she was broadsided by a fist and yanked to her feet. It was so unexpected all she felt was a dazed terror and blinding pain behind her eyes and a shooting fire down her arm.
‘You lose.’
He was taller than he’d looked in the taco van, pulsing as if he’d been hot-wired. His breath smelled minty fresh. In his other hand, he held a butcher knife.
He jerked her higher, dragging her backward toward the house, his arm gripping her throat, closing off her airway. Her lungs roared and pricks of light exploded in her eyes. He stumbled, cursing, and she stepped down hard on something mushy.
It was the partially severed head of Detective Sergeant Vince Lewin. The mask had cracked off and lay to the side. His lips were gray, eyes wide, startled. The butcher knife had cut through his Adam’s apple and it lay, like a small oyster, in a bed of blood.
On the ground, Chip feebly pointed his finger like a gun. His eyes had started to film. A gun. Dying rookie Chip Page was trying to remind her that he carried a gun. She banged her elbow hard up into her attacker’s throat and slammed her boot back into his shin, and for an instant, he loosened his grip and she wrenched free and stumbled over to Chip, ripping open his Tyvek suit and scrabbling his gun free. It was a Glock 30, slippery with Chip’s sweat and blood, unbelievably heavy. She lunged to her feet, bringing the gun up as she chambered a round and pointed it in a blur of motion fueled by terror and a primitive rage.
‘Freeze, asshole. If you think I won’t squeeze it, you’re wrong.’
He blinked once, refocused on her face. ‘He’s coming for you,’ he whispered.
‘Shut up.’ Sweat leaked into her gloves and she tightened her grip.
‘He’s the Spikeman. He transmits orders from outer space through the wires in my brain.’
‘I said shut up.’
‘I came to save you, warn you. He’s after you, the Spikeman. You need to run, Grace, now, before it’s too late.’
A chill shot through her. He knew her name. How did he know her name?
‘Don’t you want to know what he’s going to do to you?’
She hesitated a split second and saw the knife winking through the air and she pulled the trigger, kept pulling it, emptied it over and over, until he toppled, the back of his head blown off, and still she kept clicking the trigger, firing some phantom bullet, sobbing.
TWO (#ulink_c2cd7951-c7ba-5592-8f08-db3dae00937c)
Grace couldn’t stop shivering. Dark was settling over Ocean Beach, the sun a fiery ball sliding into the Pacific. Four blocks away the sand on the beach would be cold now, latched in kelp, the good-natured mothers and toddlers gone, the tourists with white legs sucking Diet Pepsi and eyeing the tattooed volleyball players gone, everyone to their own warm rooms and hot baths and Olive Garden dinners. The beach belonged to the skittering creatures of the night pushing Safeway carts and muttering, runaways with studded ears and vacant eyes, the predators. The world she worked so hard to keep away from her daughter.
And now look what happened. Look how good she was. She couldn’t even give the kid a dad, and now she’d almost made the kid an orphan.
Her stomach hurt, acid roiling up. She gripped her knees and bit her lip to keep from wailing. She should be home now, that was the deal, that was the whole thing. Katie had that pen pal assignment she’d been postponing, had to get it done tonight.
‘Did you hear me?’
Grace pulled herself back, looking through the window of the squad car, refocusing. The crime scene glowed yellow in a surreal splash of police car lights, television crews, crime scene technicians. The neighbors were back in force, smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, and joking. The two cops on traffic detail pressed the cars forward, gesturing savagely, sweat and weariness on their faces.
Grace chafed her hands together under the thin wool blanket and shifted on the backseat of the patrol car. ‘I’ve already gone through it. I gave my preliminary statement. I’m coming in tomorrow to sign it.’
‘Grace.’ Sid Felcher, her crime lab boss, sighed heavily and swiveled in the front seat, his face oily. It wasn’t his squad car, it belonged to the detective who’d taken her statement, but Sid had climbed into the front seat when the detective had gone inside the meth house, and now he rested his arm along the top of the seat as if he were polishing the leather with his forearm.
‘Another study just released, found it on the Internet, two biggest stressors for supervisors. Causes ulcers, heart attacks, groin injuries.’ He raised his eyebrows and they inched together like furry mating caterpillars. ‘Well?’
‘Sid, I need to call Katie. I need to go home.’
‘We already took care of that, remember? She’s fine, your daughter’s fine. Okay, so the answer is, ta dah!’ Sid waved his hands expansively. His nails were bitten. ‘Two main stressors for guys like me, poor working-class schmos just trying to make a living, is having to discipline, take action, against a subordinate. That means you. Huge stressor, stroke city. Other one is having to deal with the public, explain what the subordinate did that was so wrong we’re going to have to apologize for about a million years and maybe even pay big bucks to get things straightened out.’
This couldn’t be happening. Even with Sid at his most dysfunctional.
‘Sid, in case you forgot, he had a butcher knife.’
‘But he wasn’t swinging it, right? I mean, not at you. Just that little side-to-side thing, you said, but not actually at you.’
She sat back in the seat. ‘Is there something I don’t know?’
‘Grace, be more specific. What you don’t know could –’
‘About what just happened,’ she interrupted. ‘Is there something I don’t know?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like have they ID’d him?’
He hesitated a beat too long. ‘Whoever it was, it was a human life.’
She felt rage surge under the exhaustion. ‘Are you suggesting I did something wrong shooting a man with a butcher knife who had just killed a drug agent, a sergeant detective, and a uniformed cop?’
‘Whoa. I’m not suggesting anything, Grace, I’m just passing the time, sharing a survey I downloaded from Yahoo.’ He grinned. His gums were receding.
‘I need to go home.’ She pressed her fingers into her temples, fighting the impulse to bite him.
‘See, this is what they call a critical incident.’
‘I know what a critical incident is,’ Grace snapped.
A man darted out of the house and under the police tape, Paul Collins from Trace. Bags sagged under his eyes, heightening his resemblance to an aging basset hound on speed. He lumbered toward his car, face grim and an evidence kit clenched in his hands.
‘Thing is, another study.’ Sid unwrapped a toothpick and massaged his gums. ‘Some shooters, they get permanent emotional trauma, they go a little cuckoo, they visit la-la land and never come back.’
He sucked noisily on the toothpick and twirled it. His lips were wet.
‘Supervisors – we’re responsible, I’m responsible – as your boss, like it or not. I mean, I don’t take you in, get your head examined, you could sue me for mondo moola, retire to Florida, you and your kid, how old is Katie now? Two?’
‘Five this Saturday. She’s already in kindergarten.’
‘Even better. Closer to college.’ Sid fished car keys out of his Hawaiian shirt pocket and jangled them. ‘See, the thing is, you don’t have a choice.
Nobody wants to see a shrink, ever, fillet out their personal life, spill their guts to some stranger with a clipboard. I wouldn’t. Who would? You’d have to be crazy.’
He grinned at his little joke.
‘So the way it comes down, the department policy is, you have to go whether you want to or not.’
‘You haven’t answered my question.’ She shifted in the seat.
‘Which was?’
‘Who’d I shoot, Sid?’
Sid looked out the window and stared at the sky. Grace saw it seconds before she heard it, the heavy whup whup of rotor blades. A helicopter.
In Guatemala, they’d brought the girl in on a stretcher, off a helicopter. Same sound.
The wind was picking up and it hurled loose trash across the yard. A palm tree tilted crazily back and forth like a metronome.
‘Yeah, actually. They have an ID. Eddie Loud. Mean anything?’
She shook her head.
The helicopter circled and landed delicately in the flattened grass. Grace stared at the man in the passenger seat.
It was a California U.S. senator. Albert Loud looked older than his pictures, haggard, the lines around his mouth deep grooves, his nose hooked and ridged. He stared at her without comprehension.
‘I’m getting you out of here. Sit tight.’ Sid raised his voice over the roar of the blades. Senator Loud was crouching and running away from the slowing rotor blades, toward the meth house, a phalanx of officers crowding around him, keeping the press at bay.
‘Why is he here?’ Her head felt light. ‘What’s going on?’
In front of her on the lawn, the reporters turned, eyeing her. It only took a split second. They wheeled, lunged at her.
‘Holy shit.’ Sid pulled her out the other door, gripping her arm in the blinding flash of lights and clamoring reporters. ‘Head down!’ he screamed. ‘Head down.’
She ducked and he pushed her through the tangle of cords and microphones.
‘He’s here, Grace,’ Sid barked, as they burst onto the street and ran for her car, ‘Senator Albert Loud is here because it was his son back there. You killed his son.’
THREE (#ulink_e2516b4a-44ce-5695-aca5-b795dbd71c56)
She pulled into the driveway and her headlights revealed her house in pitiless relief, like in a police lineup. Hers was the ratty one in the middle, squeezed into a row of minimansions.
The house on the right belonged to a retired osteopath and his wife. Blocky pink stucco, gated and electronically locked, with a metal fence spiking into iron bulbs every few feet. Nobody came in or out of that house. Even the mailman used a cement slot built into the fence.
The house on the left cascaded in white cubes amid designer palms. A stoop-shouldered attorney Grace’s age lived there, with a blond wife and two kids in private school uniforms. She’d hear them in the back sometimes through the natural barrier of high succulents that separated their properties. At night, the motor in their swimming pool gargled like an old man.
On her house, the dormer window flaked, the front door bulged with moisture, the second step leading to the door splintered and sagged. Even the trees looked bad. Leathery and overgrown, they shed gray leaves like molting birds onto the green tar paper roof of the garage clamped onto the left side of the house.
She watched as a squirrel darted across the front yard and sprinted along the splintery picket fence, diving into a shrub under the bay window. The bay window hung over a yard she was too tired to tend, the window made of cramped squares of glass leaded and soldered, looking as if it had been assembled by some parsimonious contractor cousin of Dickens – please, sir, may I have one more pane of glass, sir, a little larger, if you please, oh, you’re too generous – flanked by two narrow windows that actually opened, providing some relief in the summer when she sat in the living room and contemplated her life.
Not much relief, considering what she had to work with. Cramped, untidy, spilling with dog hair and scraps of paper, vagrant Cheerios and missing shin guards wedged under sofa cushions. Home.
Not that she could complain. From the street it looked like a broken-down fire hazard, but inside, her home held an amazing secret. She had no illusions about ever being able to afford a new roof or granite countertops in her lifetime. It was enough, plenty, more than enough that the house sat on an actual beach in a section of San Diego in Point Loma called La Playa, and that the back of the lot faced out over the harbor and gently tilting sailboats, while across the water the glass and chrome towers of downtown San Diego twinkled on the horizon like small crystal boxes.
Only thirteen homes shared the beach that had once been a staging area for seamen melting tallow. They were whalers, Portuguese immigrants transplanted from the Azores, sturdy soldiers of fortune who rode the seas and started a tuna empire. They’d all lived together; their kids had gone to Cabrillo Elementary and they’d shopped at family-run stores and eaten at small restaurants clustered along Rosecrans, the main thoroughfare. Now the fishermen had moved a few blocks inland, and real estate along La Playa beach had skyrocketed.
She’d never sell, despite increasingly clamorous offers from Realtors and sometimes people just out for Sunday drives. The view always calmed her, but it wasn’t only the view that made Grace fight so hard to stay there. The house was all she had left of her dad.
Thoughts crashed. She turned off the ignition and sat in the dark. Once, her dad had taken her alone to Lake Morena to catch fish. He made his living doing that, in deep waters, but this was vacation, and he was spending part of it with her. She’d crawled eagerly into the boat. Six years old, still small enough so the wooden sides seemed high. He’d heaved the boat into the water and jumped in after her, her hands clamped around a tin can of worms. That was her job, he’d said, keeping the can safe while he climbed into the boat. He plunged his hand into the black soil and pulled out a worm. It glistened plump gray and magenta, pulsing in his hand. It was the most magnificent thing she’d ever seen. Her dad’s other hand flashed into his tackle box and in the same fluid motion pierced the creature with a hook. Blood spurted and it thrashed, trying to get away. Her throat closed in fright. It was alive just like she was. It had blood and it hurt. She burst into tears and begged him to take her home. She didn’t mean for it to die, she whispered.
And now she’d put a bullet through a man’s skull. Several bullets. There had been a fence next to Eddie Loud, and the force of the gunfire had splashed it with bits of brain and flesh and blood. The raw stink of fresh meat had hung hotly in the night air.
Now she couldn’t seem to get that smell out of her nostrils. Heavily, Grace stepped from the car and locked the door. She could hear them inside as she went down the service alley on the right side of the house. Helix banged against the porch screen door, whining.
She unlocked it and Helix bounded toward her clattering on his fake leg, tail wagging in a frenzy of doggie devotion. He was a mix, a mongrel stray, part shepherd and collie, hit by a car as a puppy and left to die. Grace had rushed him to the vet, who’d informed her that fixing him up would cost the equivalent of a small developing country’s entire gross national product. Grace had made the mistake of going into the death chamber to say a weepy good-bye. Five minutes later she was scheduling the operation that had saved his life.
‘Some alarm system.’ Grace scratched him behind his ears, and he rolled over and yipped. She rinsed off her Tyvek suit and filled the sink with water and bleach, spying a discarded pizza carton tucked behind the wastebasket. Helix followed her through the kitchen, his doggy nails clicking across the linoleum like a flamenco dancer.
The calamity of being a parent was that there was no off switch, no time-out for personal disaster. Schoolwork still called, lunches had to be packed, reprimands administered. Her head pounded.
In the family room, Katie was belting out a country western song, standing on the piano bench wearing a pink flowered nightie, Mickey Mouse ears, and cowboy boots, almost dwarfed by the Gibson she was strumming. Her fingers were so tiny she only played the bottom string of the chords. Lottie stood crouched over the piano, banging the rhythm, her silvery blond head moving in time. She was wearing orange vinyl hot pants and white go-go boots with tassels and a vest with beads that shimmied as she moved.
‘No, honey,’ Lottie interrupted, ‘that’s a C chord you’re playing; it’s a G.’ She broke into song, demonstrating, ‘We don’t share the same time zone …’
Katie focused, nodding, tried it again, her voice clear and treble. ‘We don’t share the same time zone … you’re not my phone-a-friend … and all the special features I like best you never do intend …’
Lottie nodded, banging out the chords with force. ‘That’s right, kid, milk it, honey.’
Helix bounded across the carpet and skidded into Lottie. He still had trouble stopping properly.
‘For Pete’s sake. How’d he get out …’
Grace smacked the empty pizza carton against her thigh and Lottie snapped her mouth shut.
‘Busted,’ Katie said.
Lottie guiltily banged the lid down on the piano. Katie turned toward her mother to plead her case. She froze on the bench, staring.
‘Mommy, are you okay?’ Katie’s voice was small, and too late, Grace remembered her face.
At least Katie hadn’t seen her on TV. Lottie’s idea of television news was watching psychic pets find missing jewelry.
‘I’m fine.’
‘Your jaw is all purple.’
‘I just had a little accident, but I’m fine. That’s not what I want to talk about. What I want to know is …’ She lifted the pizza carton as if she were signaling the ships in the bay beyond the sliding glass door. ‘What is this? Lottie?’
Grace waggled the carton at her and Lottie sneezed.
‘You know I’m allergic to that dog.’
‘Answer the question.’
Other people had mothers who wore suits and went to the Wednesday Club, where they drank tea and listened to lectures on Quail Botanical Gardens. Grace’s mother was still in her midfifties, with a smooth, unlined face, stuffed into a pair of hot pants so tight that her rear looked like two cantaloupes squeezed into a plastic bag.
‘You weren’t supposed to see that pizza carton,’ Lottie said.
‘You know she had pizza for lunch. Lottie, you promised you’d fix her a real dinner. Something with vegetables in it.’
‘It’s rude to call your mother Lottie,’ Lottie said. ‘It’s not respectful. Is that what you want your daughter to call you when she grows up?’
‘Latte?’ Katie squealed. ‘You want me to call Mommy Latte?’
‘Sure, like one of those coffee drinks,’ Grace said.
‘It’s not like you’re a Roller Derby queen.’ Lottie’s eyes traveled over Grace’s face. ‘A mud wrestler. Look at you. What did you do? Walk into a wall? You know, you can’t spend your life running through jobs like they were a pair of hose.’
‘We’re not talking about my face or career choices. We’re talking about dinner.’
‘Jeez, Grace, lighten up,’ Lottie said.
It was like having two kids, only one of them could drive and order take-out. ‘Where’s your homework, Katie?’
‘A four year-old child –’
‘Five,’ Katie said. ‘I’ll be five on Saturday.’
‘A five-year-old child in kindergarten shouldn’t be expected to do homework,’ Lottie said. ‘You should change schools. I bet you’d like more recess, wouldn’t you, honey?’
‘So where is it?’ Grace repeated.
Katie said brightly, ‘Grandma’s taking me to Disneyland for my birthday.’
‘You’re having a party on your birthday,’ Grace said. ‘You’re not going to Disneyland.’
‘Not right then,’ Lottie said. ‘Of course, not then. I have to miss her party, I told you. Terrell and I are going out of town.’ She leaned down toward Katie and cooed, ‘And that’s why I’m taking my sweet little sweetums to Disneyland upon my return. I personally know one of the dancing dwarfs, who’s prepared to give us a behind-the-scenes tour of the Magic Kingdom.’
‘Goodie,’ Katie cried.
‘You did make her do her homework, right?’ Grace pressed a finger against her temple. A vein throbbed.
Lottie pulled on her lip.
‘The one thing I asked you to do.’
Lottie shot her a wounded look and fiddled with her hair. Her bracelet clanked. It was fake turquoise that looked like gobs of used chewing gum. ‘We were getting around to it.’ She opened her mouth, threw back her head and sneezed. ‘That dog. I mean it.’
‘When, Lottie? It is now after eight on a school night and all you’ve done so far is pump up my child on caffeinated soda and yellow grease.’
‘Grace, you’re just not fun anymore. You need to work on your people skills.’
‘I want you to sit, Katie.’ Grace’s voice was icy calm. ‘I want you to sit at this desk and not move until you finish your homework. Is that clear?’
Katie stomped to the desk.
Grace yanked open a drawer and got out Katie’s stationery. It was pink and orange and had psychedelic ponies gamboling. She positioned a purple crayon in her daughter’s limp hand.
‘This is fun,’ Grace said. ‘We’re having fun learning about the mail. You send this to somebody, you get something back. You’re going to like it.’ It sounded like a threat.
Katie started to whimper. ‘You can’t make me.’
‘Oh, for Pete’s sake,’ Lottie protested.
‘I don’t have anybody to write to!’ Katie burst into tears and put her head down, dampening the stationery.
‘Write to Clint, honey,’ Lottie said, ‘he’d be happy to have you –’
‘She is not writing to Clint,’ Grace said, and Katie wiped her eyes and raised her head, interested at this turn of events.
‘Who’s Clint?’
‘She’s not writing to some hick singer who shellacs his hair until it’s the size of a turkey rump.’
Grace couldn’t believe she was having this conversation after the day she’d had, except that it was with Lottie, so it made sense. In the kitchen, the phone rang.
‘Hick!’ Lottie said in a hushed, stricken voice. Her unnaturally violet eyes brimmed with tears. ‘I want you to know Clint’s hosted the first hour of the Grand Ole Opry seventeen times, and I mean the first hour that’s broadcast, too, not the one that warms everybody up. Not even George has done that.’
‘She’s not doing it,’ Grace said.
‘How do you spell Clint?’ Katie asked.
‘Katie, enough. And Lottie, would you please get that phone?’
Grace waited while Lottie stalked out of the room, muttering about personal maid service.
‘Remember that girl Mommy told you was her friend when she was in high school?’
Katie shook her head.
Grace reached around Katie to rifle through the desk.
‘We haven’t gotten a pumpkin and you promised. We never do anything.’
Novels made it look easy. Heroines, they had a kid, they had problems, the kid got farmed out for long stretches, just dropped conveniently out of the story, while the heroine – always taller and skinnier than in real life, too, it wasn’t right – got herself out of trouble in some plucky way and came back to the kid and the kid was relaxed and happy and clueless about how close her mom had come to being turned into roadkill.
‘Nothing fun. I’m just a little kid. I’m supposed to have fun.’
‘You’re having a party Saturday.’
From the kitchen, Lottie sneezed and trilled into the phone, ‘Hello? Helllooo?’
‘And no goodie bags ready yet either. None. Not one.’
‘Oh, good, here.’ Grace pulled out her address book and started thumbing through it. It was slow going. Somehow, she’d mixed up the R’s with the S’s. ‘Well, Mommy had a friend named Annie and she grew up and got married, and they had a kid and he lives on a farm in Iowa and that’s who you can send your drawing to. And you can tell me what to say, if you want, and I’ll write it down.’
‘And a costume. You said you’d make one this year. You promised.’
Grace had. Months ago it sounded like a fine idea, she just couldn’t remember why. In the kitchen, Lottie banged down the phone, cursing.
‘You promised and you forgot. Just like you forgot to take me to see the panda baby at the zoo.’
‘The panda baby was sleeping, Katie.’
‘You promised and we didn’t.’
Katie had the instincts of a pit bull. She just lunged and clamped hold, dragging Grace back over every thing she’d promised and failed to deliver. Grace would be on her deathbed and Katie would kneel and clasp her wizened hand and stroke the purply veins, lean in close and murmur, ‘You promised popcorn and we were out.’ Then Katie would pull out a list of wrongs, and it would be on one of those long computer paper rolls, and she’d settle in for a nice, long chat.
Death would be a relief. Grace kept looking through her address book, ignoring the expletives coming from the kitchen. ‘He’s nine. A Cub Scout, I think.’
Her finger stopped. ‘There. Here it is. His name is Dusty Rhodes. He’ll enjoy getting a lovely drawing from you.’
‘No, he won’t. He’s a boy.’
Nobody ever told her it would be this hard. This constant and this hard. ‘They have animals and he has a paper route and he’s nine,’ she repeated. ‘Or ten. Anyway. That’s who you can send your letter to.’ She block-printed out the address onto the envelope.
‘I could write to Daddy.’ It hung there. Grace looked at her. Katie stared at her hands. Katie tried lots of things to get out of what she didn’t want to do, but never the trump card, her dad.
Grace had created this longing in this small, beautiful girl, this empty space that nothing filled. She’d promised herself she’d be better than Lottie, and she’d turned around and created the same ache in Katie that she’d had, growing up.
‘We’ve been through this, honey,’ Grace said gently. ‘Remember? Daddy died before you were born. It has to be a real letter. Not one to heaven.’
‘Tell me again.’ Katie stood up and Grace settled into the chair and pulled her onto her lap.
Katie’s eyes were a rich brown, a Portuguese color that spoke of sailing ships and rough seas and High Mass said in lonely places.
‘We loved each other very much.’
‘Uh-huh. Jack. You met him at a Padres game. They were playing New York.’
‘Right. We got pregnant and were going to get married, which is not the right order to do things in, and I don’t want you doing it that way either, but I’ll still love you no matter what.’
‘Only there was a car crash. That’s what happened.’
‘That’s what happened. And he would have loved you, honey.’
‘A lot.’
‘Over the moon. That’s what he would have been, having you as his daughter.’
Lottie appeared in the archway. ‘Wrong number. He hung up.’
‘You’re sure it was a he?’
‘I could tell just the way he breathed it was a he. I know how men breathe, Grace.’
‘So this Dusty kid,’ Katie said. ‘That’s a silly dilly stupid name.’
Grace glanced uneasily toward the phone, her thoughts elsewhere. ‘What? Try and leave that part out, Katie.’
An hour later, Lottie mercifully gone, Grace finished the carton of yogurt she was eating standing up. She bent down and kissed her daughter on the forehead.
Katie’s hair was a curly cloud on the pillow. Her favorite doll nestled in her arms, a Katie doll built to look like her, an extravagant birthday present Grace had given her for her fourth birthday. It had a recorder inside, so that Katie’s voice came out in short staccato sentences that Katie periodically changed. The voice was so lifelike that Grace sometimes thought it was Katie herself and dropped whatever she was doing to answer, much to Katie’s great amusement, which made Grace want to permanently injure the Katie doll’s vocal cords in any one of a number of unfortunate accidents.
Katie’s eyes were closed, along with the doll’s. They were dressed in matching pink nighties, caramel-colored hair tangled in wild manes, dark long lashes against pink cheeks. On the vanity lay the drawing, smudged and crinkled with violent splotches of color. It appeared to be a giant smiling orange head floating over a pink and orange lake. Katie had dictated a short message to go along with it.
Dear Dusty: How are you? I am fine. This is Cinderella who is riding in a big pumpkin. She is inside. That is why nobody can see her. Mommy says you came to our house and broke your arm. You need to write me back right away so I can pass kindergarten. Sincerely, Katie Descanso.
Impulsively, Grace ripped a piece of paper out of a wide-lined notebook she found in Katie’s bookshelf and added a quick note of her own:
Dear Annie: We missed hearing from you at Christmas. Hope you’re okay. I know this is a lot, but could you prod Dusty to answer this right away? Katie’s had this pen pal assignment looming over her for weeks. Of course. Love you, thanks. G.
‘We get to play the Timer Game tomorrow, right?’ Katie’s voice was blurred with sleep.
She’d forgotten about the Timer Game. ‘Right.’
‘Good.’ Katie shifted and licked her lip, eyes closed. ‘You’re wrong about one thing, Mommy.’
‘Only one?’ Grace sealed the letters in an envelope and dropped it on the dresser. She opened the drawers.
‘He’s not dead.’
‘Who?’ She pulled together shorts and a top and underwear. There was a long silence, and Grace thought Katie had dropped off to sleep.
‘Daddy,’ Katie muttered. Her lips went slack. She breathed in through her nose.
A prick of unease darted through her. She put down the clothes. ‘Honey. Katie.’ Grace touched her shoulder gently. ‘What are you talking about, sweetie? With Daddy.’
‘He visits me sometimes.’ Katie shifted under the covers, punching the pillow down, trying to find a comfortable spot.
‘Visits you?’ Grace shifted her weight. She adjusted the quilt. They’d bought it on sale at Penney’s, small pink squares of pink and white rosebuds.
‘Uh-huh. I’ll wake up. He’ll be there, at the end of my bed. He talks to me, too.’
‘What does he say?’
‘Stuff. Just private stuff. He’s coming back for me.’ She yawned hugely. ‘Night, Mommy.’
‘Night, sweetie.’
‘Wait till I sleep?’ Katie’s voice was faint.
‘Sure.’
The room faced out over Scott Street. In the dark, the soccer and T-ball trophies on Katie’s bookshelf were indistinct soldiers. The half-opened window was a small black square hanging over the eaves slanting down to the front porch. The dotted Swiss curtains moved gently, caught in an invisible breeze.
Grace stroked her daughter’s hair. ‘Katie? You do know he doesn’t do that, right? Sweetie, you do know that?’
Katie’s mouth opened into a slack O. One small foot hung out of the pink quilt. Grace cradled it in her hands. It was warm and delicate as a shell.
She kissed the arch, tucked it back in, and gently eased the window shut.
Across the street, a shadow moved. Grace tensed. It was a dog, nosing in the trash. Screens. She had to spring for screens.
Helix was dreaming on the braided rug when she entered her bedroom at the end of the hallway, his fake leg spasming the air. From her bedroom sliding glass window, the harbor spread out before her, glittering with boats tethered in black water. She pulled the sheer curtains and locked her bedroom door. She could feel her heart banging dully in her chest as she went to her closet and found it.
It was a small hard box made of enamel and she kept it on the top shelf under her sweaters. She was breathing through her mouth now and Helix cracked an eye open to look at her blearily before settling back into sleep. She lay down on the bed and put the box on her chest and felt its small cold heaviness, and her finger slid into the crack of the box and she sighed deeply and opened it.
The phone rang.
Helix jerked out of sleep and growled once deep in his throat. ‘It’s okay, boy, it’s okay.’
She stared at the machine, wondering if this was going to be another night where she was plagued with hang-ups. She heard Jeanne’s voice leaving a message, and she put the box aside and rolled over and picked up. ‘Hey.’
‘My God, I can’t believe what you’ve been through.’
‘Did you call earlier?’ Grace sat up. Helix stretched and got up, taking a few steps and flopping down next to her ankles, his ear cocked, watching her.
‘What? No, why?’
‘I keep getting hang-ups. Never mind.’
Her eyes strayed to a group of photos on the wall and found the one of a beaming nun holding the hand of a shy Guatemalan kid who looked to be about ten. She frowned and reached down to scratch Helix behind his ears. He made a small sound of pleasure and his tail thumped the wooden floor.
‘Are you watching the news?’
‘What channel?’
‘All the channels, kiddo.’ Jeanne’s whiskey-ravaged voice dropped into a phlegmy rattle and Grace could hear her sucking on a lozenge. ‘They’re withholding your name for the time being, there’s that at least. Some wild man in a Hawaiian shirt’s pushing you out the squad car and screaming at you to duck.’
Grace felt drained. ‘Sid. My boss. I’ve told you about him.’
‘Oh, so that’s Sid. I always pictured somebody taller.’
Grace tried to smile.
‘Who was taking care of Katie?’
‘You mean while it happened? Lottie.’
Jeanne groaned. ‘God. Oil on the fire. You need to take a meeting? I could stay with Katie.’
‘I’m okay, Jeanne.’ An edge had crept into her voice.
Jeanne was silent, except for the sound of crunching. ‘I could come anyway.’
Grace shifted the phone and sank back, stretching out on the quilt. A pain jolted her midriff, and she massaged her side.
‘Grace?’
Tears welled and leaked down her face, wetting the quilt and pooling near her ears.
‘Honey?’
‘I’m here.’ Her voice was desolate, lost.
‘Talk to me, honey.’
Grace curled into a ball and rocked. ‘I can’t. I don’t.’ Her voice was low, fighting it.
‘Start anyplace. Start with what happened.’
Grace squeezed her eyes shut. ‘Can’t. Too soon.’
‘Then start with how it feels.’
Her belly was on fire, her head throbbed, her shoulder felt wrenched from the socket, and everything safe in the world was gone. She was in Guatemala again, and the world was on fire. It happened fast, when it came, with a force that never failed to derail her. It was close now and she was running hard ahead of it, trying to break free.
‘Oh, God. Pain. In my gut. Lost. Nobody here. Afraid. Like my body’s been torn apart. I’m free-falling, Jeanne.’
‘Honey, stay with me.’
Her lips were numb now and she felt a pounding behind her eyes; all the bad horses had been unleashed. A flicker of fire darted across her vision, the screen behind her eyes blinding, and she heard the crackling noise that always presaged a bad attack.
‘Stay there. Right there. I’ll be there in ten minutes.’
‘Door’s locked.’ Her lips were turning numb.
‘I’ve got a key, remember? I’ll be right there.’
‘Don’t. Don’t go. Don’t leave me.’
‘I’m right here. Take a breath. Come on. Come on, sweetie. Come on back.’
Grace made herself open her eyes and she stared at the ceiling and forced her breathing to calm down. Her skin felt damp.
‘Where are you now? What’s happening?’
Grace shook her head and closed her eyes. Her feet were cold and she burrowed them under the pillows. ‘If I drove. I could.’
Jeanne crunched down hard on the lozenge and the noise made Grace wince.
‘Sure. There’s Vons on Rosecrans but why mess around pretending you need milk? Just hit the first liquor store you can find and get it over with. There’s one two blocks away.’
Grace exhaled. Her breath was shaky. ‘Too hard, Jeanne. This.’
‘Don’t give me that crap. You know drinking’s not the answer.’
Grace took another unsteady breath and the dark thing in her mind slid back to where it lived.
‘You heard me, right?’
‘Tell me again all the reasons.’
‘Katie.’
‘That’s one.’
‘That’s five or six million, all bunched up together, Grace. That little girl is your only responsibility. That’s all that matters. Doing right by her.’
‘My only responsibility?’ Grace licked her lip. The ceiling had stopped moving, and she took a deeper breath. ‘Easy for you to say. You have alimony and a house in Mission Hills with a pool, and AA when you want to go slumming.’
‘An empty house, Grace, an ex-husband who would have gnawed off his own foot to get away, two kids who hate me, neighbors who talk about me behind my back, and yes, AA, but not when I want to go slumming.’ Jeanne stopped. ‘You okay now? You better?’
‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ She rolled on her side and took a deep shuddery breath, her eyes on the door, the door that led down the hall to Katie, that sweet bundle of laughter and darting energy, prickly feelings and blazing joy.
‘That’s it. I’m coming over.’ A click. Dial tone.
‘Thanks,’ Grace whispered.
In her mind, she still heard the whispery voice, the silky question:
Don’t you want to know what he’s going to do to you?
Going to do to you?
Going to do to you?
FOUR (#ulink_f3eda714-3785-5412-ae45-500972040650)
Monday
The CNN reporter had been following the taillights of a battered pickup truck for almost an hour as it headed into the Tohono O’odham Nation, a hundred miles of desert stretching from Arizona into Mexico. It was two in the morning, and stars spangled the night sky.
Mac McGuire was traveling a road he’d taken half a dozen times, but a sudden rain the night before had cut gullies through it and left part of it a mire. He was relieved to have a guide.
On the seat next to him Pete Hildebrand snoozed, a burly arm around the camera. Mac felt a flash of irritation. One day, the car would hit a bump and that camera would fly out of his arms and smack the dashboard like an egg. In back, Aaron Spense stretched out, arms crossed, wearing his dad’s Marine boots, iPod earbuds in his ears. Next to him lay a mixer in a tangle of cables and snarl of mikes. Aaron was twenty-two, Pete not much older. It made Mac feel tired. He was thirty-eight, his last birthday.
Usually, CNN would have sent at least one producer, but Mac had insisted on keeping the size down, instinctively understanding that the fewer people pushing into their world, the greater likelihood he had of getting what he’d come for.
He thought through how it was going to go, what he was going to say, where the overhead boom mike needed to be positioned, and when exactly he wanted Pete to come in close for a tight shot. The mechanics kept his mind off the shoot itself, how important this one was.
Hekka Miasonkopna was a Yaqui Indian girl, three and a half years old, who was born with a damaged left ventricle. What had started as a piece about the nightmare of getting expensive cardiac care when poor had evolved into a series about the complexity of culture shaping worldview and the ferocity of a parent’s love.
Hekka’s parents knew she would die. They accepted it. So it became Mac’s fight, for her. She was now in end-stage and would die without a transplant, something they’d resisted considering. There was another thing they could try. Something so new it was still in experimental trials. So new nobody in the media except Mac and his producers and video team even knew of its existence.
His job was laying out the options and stepping back to record what happened next. Part of him came here wanting to nudge her parents into action, a move that was right at the edge of stepping over the line, and he knew it.
He and his colleagues joked about the special hell reserved for reporters. Someplace where they’d be forced to sit for eternity with the hapless fools they’d talked into doing something – a giddy kid he’d once coached early in his career into getting a tattoo on camera came to mind; that one still gnawed at his conscience – and the problem was that even with the most altruistic of pieces, like this one, there existed a small part inside himself that was looking at it coldly, evaluating it not just for its emotional wallop but for its ability to be a Mac piece, helping him – just like that old American Express ad – go everywhere he wanted to go.
Unlike local stations keyed to November sweeps, CNN tracked ratings all the time. TV viewing was higher in the fall, and Mac was working on two series simultaneously that would get big play: a graphic and disturbing one about child porn on the Internet that was close to being in the can, and this one with Hekka, culminating in her ground-breaking surgery and its aftermath.
Providing they went for it. Or not. Either way, it was a story. He hated himself for even thinking that. Mac sincerely wanted her to live. He’d grown attached to the little girl and her family. But part of him, almost equally as strongly, knew if they chose to let her die, it would tug at the audience just as much.
Horrible business, news. Someplace along the line, he’d sold part of himself and he couldn’t figure out how to get it back.
Clouds of dust rose and seeped into his vehicle, making it look as if Arturo’s truck was floating in a puff of magic. Mac’s eyes burned. In the lights, the Coyote Mountains rose like an apparition of shaggy cliffs and granite bluffs.
The pickup veered off road and Mac shifted into low, bumping across a dry riverbed. The Swiss Army knife on his key chain clinked like wind chimes.
The mother was in his pocket; he knew that. She’d try anything to save her kid. The grandfather, Don Jose, was the challenge. Maybe he wasn’t even there anymore and it would make things easy. Somehow Mac doubted it. This one hadn’t been easy from the first.
The land crumpled into arroyos of creosote bush and cactus. Bony cattle, picking their way among the scrub, flared in the lights and disappeared. Tin houses flashed and were gone.
The truck slowed and disappeared over a rise and Mac followed. The hollow was pitch black, except for a lightbulb hanging over a wooden porch that outlined the sloping roof of a house. Moths banged into the light and an oak stood like a sleeping giant, one branch hanging low over the house.
The truck cab opened and Arturo got out, with his long braids and dusty jeans, a younger version of his elderly father. Kids spilled out of the flatbed. Maria stood in the doorway, a baby on her hip, dark hair streaked prematurely with gray. Worry had etched fine lines on her face.
‘Showtime,’ Mac McGuire said softly as he pulled to a stop. Pete and Aaron yawned and scratched and rolled out of the vehicle, shivering in the cold. Aaron’s dyed hair tips looked like white dandelion tufts in the dark.
‘Inside.’ Maria pulled Mac over the doorsill and switched on a light.
Hekka’s bed sat in the middle of the front room. The kids from the truck crept silently into the room and slid into the corners. The room smelled acrid and old. Hekka’s breathing was labored, a bubbly sound that alarmed Mac. Her hair lay limply across the gray pillow. A vein in her neck pulsed. She’d always been smaller than normal, but now her fingers were clubbed and tipped in blue and her lips were ashy. He went to the bed and took her hand. It was icy.
‘Hey,’ he said softly. ‘It’s Mac. The reporter.’ She moaned in her sleep and her eyelids fluttered. ‘Yeah, I know, that’s what everybody says when they hear it’s me.’ He gently slid his hand free and surveyed the room.
An old man close to eighty was sitting in a chair near the window. Mac nodded. Cords of sinew roped Don Jose’s arms and most of his teeth were gone. His few remaining teeth were yellowed tusks. He patted a pouch strapped to his belt, extracting a piece of guasima wood and a small knife. It was a half-carved figure three inches tall, the legs of a man, the head of a deer. Nicks outlined where the legs and feet would go. He set to work, ignoring Mac and the tangled cables at his feet as Pete and Aaron moved through the room setting up equipment.
The important thing right then was how quickly Pete and Aaron could get things ready, and Mac took the offered cup of water from Maria and stepped back as his crew adjusted the lights and checked audio levels. After a few moments, Aaron nodded to Mac, signaling they were set. Once they were inside this dusty wooden room, things always moved quickly, and Mac had learned the hard way he could never redo a moment if it wasn’t captured on video.
‘She’s dying,’ Arturo said abruptly, daring Mac to contradict him. Pete hoisted the camera and came in for a tight shot of the father’s wounded face.
‘I’m not a doctor,’ Mac started.
‘But still. You were one of those reporters in Afghanistan, you said. You saw death all the time. Even sewed some people up. Stopped that one guy from bleeding to death. You told me the story,’ he insisted. ‘You can hear it, same as me.’
‘I can hear it,’ Mac agreed.
In the corner, the blade snicked through the wood, popping shaved curls into the air.
‘She needs to go to the Center, Arturo,’ Mac said. ‘She can’t stay here anymore. That’s what the doctors say. They have a bed for her. They’ve told you it’s her best chance.’
‘But not for that!’ Arturo said. ‘Not for that heart-that-is-not-a-heart! She will die! Don Jose is certain.’
Maria buried her face in her infant daughter’s neck. Pete swung the camera onto her face and held. Maria shifted the baby in her arms.
‘You’ve changed your mind about the heart-in-a-box?’ The parents had enrolled Hekka in the experimental program four months before, only the second child out of a possible ten to be admitted, and time for her was running out.
‘It is a lie,’ Don Jose said from his chair. His voice was gravelly. The camera swung and steadied on his implacable face.
‘It’s brand-new,’ Mac countered. ‘But Dr. Bentley’s done it once before and that child is now strong.’
Mac thought of the piece he’d just finished editing that was part of the series. Eric Bettles was a five-year-old boy who’d been within days of dying a year ago when his lab-built heart had been implanted, a heart made from his own cells. He’d come back so dramatically that when they’d taped him last week, Eric was playing ball with his dad. During that year, his family had been sworn to secrecy until the series aired this week. It was a new procedure. Risky. How risky was the question. No one had an answer.
It was a crap shoot; a gamble. Eric Bettles looked strong, but no one could accurately predict what waited for him down the road. A developing heart in a fetus acquires tensile strength from the rhythmic beating of the mother’s own heart. In a lab-created heart, electronic pulses were used to simulate that movement; scientists still weren’t sure if Eric’s heart wouldn’t some day fray. If that happened, he’d die immediately. No turning back.
But Mac’s job wasn’t explaining the downside to Hekka’s parents. Doctors had done that and he’d caught it on tape.
‘It’s a heart built just for her,’ Mac reminded him. ‘I’m wondering why you’re rejecting the advice of doctors. They say it’s time to bring her into the Center and have that new heart put in.’
And then the series would air. And life forever would change across the world for transplant patients. Two lab-created hearts made out of tiny patients’ own cells and successfully implanted were enough for the Center to risk a firestorm of publicity and the attendant clamor of those wanting to enroll their kids in the experimental and risky program.
Enough to bump Mac up to whatever he wanted next. Maybe an anchor job. He wasn’t sure.
‘Except it’s a lie.’ The video whirred, the shot tight now on Don Jose. ‘I dreamed a black hole in Hekka’s chest. A heart not hers, evil found and lost. I dreamed her with wings, singing with a tuik kutanak, a good throat, and a strong heart in heaven, finally hers.’ He rolled the carving and knife between his yellowed palms and the outline of a foot emerged.
‘If she doesn’t come in, she will die. That’s what they say. It’s that simple.’ Mac’s voice was flat.
Don Jose carved in silence. Finally he said, ‘I carve the deer dancer. I carve this not for life. But for the usi mukila pahko.’
Mac searched his memory for Yaqui religious symbols and found it. When he’d first met the family and discovered the elder Don Jose was a devout Yaqui, he’d bought books through the University of Arizona to better understand the culture. Hell, use it. Why lie? Especially to himself. Usi mukila pahko. The funeral of a child.
‘You go now. We prepare for the sea ania.’ Don Jose sniffed, already done with him.
‘The flower world,’ Mac pressed. ‘But that’s east, beneath the dawn.’ East meant life.
Don Jose tipped the carving. The deer dancer stooped, caught mid-dance, elbows out, head angled, so his deer face and antlers looked behind him over his shoulder.
‘The dancer looks behind him. Toward the place of life. But his feet, still unformed, move in the opposite path. He dances west,’ Don Jose rumbled. ‘Toward death.’
‘No!’ Maria cried. Her voice was unexpected and shrill. The men froze. It was not seemly to behave this way, even over the dying of a child. ‘No. She is my daughter, too. I will not. I will not. She will go in.’
Arturo took a step toward his wife but Don Jose held up a gnarled hand, stopping him.
‘Hekka’s on the UNOS list. Maybe there will be a regular donor heart for her,’ Mac offered. ‘Arizona and California are both AREA 5 on the UNOS transplant map so that means you can stay at the Center while you wait.’
Not reminding them that because of specific immunity problems, doctors had pegged Hekka’s chances at finding a compatible heart at less than 15 percent. Only saying, ‘If she stays here, they say she doesn’t have a chance.’
They waited. The camera whirred.
‘Very well. Hekka goes to the Center with me,’ Don Jose said finally. ‘I shall be her guardian. But this heart-in-a-box, it will not save her.’
Great video, Mac thought, and felt equal parts shame and euphoria.
Pete and Aaron dropped him off at La Cholla Airpark northwest of Tucson near the Tortolita Mountains. The pair kept driving toward Tucson International, where they’d catch the same commercial flight that would carry Hekka and her grandfather back to San Diego.
The office was a modular building, sided in stucco and framed by a cement walkway larded with stepping-stones. An acacia and two bristly mesquite trees offered slight shade. Even this early, the smell of heat rising from the cement mingled with the faint scent of sage.
The pilot, Jeb Shattuck, punched in a code at the French doors and pushed them open. He was wearing black Doc Martens and his hair under his trademark Sacramento Kings hat was turning gray.
‘There’s a computer in the pilots’ lounge, if you need to go online before we leave. I’ll be outside.’
Mac nodded and stepped inside. He drank coffee out of his thermos as Jeb went through the checklist on the Cirrus. The room had lavender-gray carpeting and two sofas littered with aviation magazines. A bulletin board to the left of a small office was crammed with ads for planes, spaces to lease, and tie-down information.
Mac went to the window and looked out past a row of corrugated metal hangars and shadeports. It was just after four in the morning and the sky held the faint pearl color that came an hour before dawn, suffusing the mountains in pink. A light rain fell. In the distance, tidy homes sat amid a vast desert landscape, and horses drowsed along a corral fence.
Jeb was squatting under the plane with what looked like a shot glass and metal straw, poking the straw up into the underside of the plane, taking a fuel sample. He was based out of Sacramento but Mac always used him for trips when he could pry money out of his expense account. Jeb routinely flew media stars who wanted a low profile, and sometimes celebrity pilots whose insurance policies insisted on the presence of a second pilot on board. Mac had heard he flew with Angelina Jolie, but he’d never hear it from Jeb. And Mac liked that, how discreet and trustworthy Jeb was, and how unswayed by star power. Liked the man.
Jeb held the cup up to the light and checked for contaminants, discarding the thimble of fuel in a quick toss onto the tarmac that left a faint streak of shine. He half waved and mimed checking his watch. He held up five fingers. Mac nodded and turned away from the window.
He knew from experience Jeb still needed to check the control surfaces, making certain the safety wires were secure, tweak the wheel pants to see if they moved, eyeball the static port, a quarter-sized metal piece flush on each side of the sleek white body, to ensure that the pin-sized hole at the center wasn’t blocked. More checks than that, but that was enough to know he had five minutes at least.
He walked to the computer desk and found the mouse amid a stack of papers. He drank the rest of his coffee and sat down, fingers clicking over the keys, looking for breaking news stories, an occupational curse.
He found a Web stream of a local news station out of Tucson, anchored by a stocky man with darkly handsome features and a much younger woman wearing a crisp suit. The female anchor, hair stiff with gel, was introducing a piece out of San Diego. Mac had seen a flash the night before. Something about a California senator’s son being shot in a meth bust gone bad.
He turned up the sound. He knew that part of San Diego, Ocean Beach – a funky hippie holdout with bead shops and tattooed panhandlers usually accompanied by pit bulls. He saw her darting out of a squad car into a jostling thicket of reporters and felt his throat close.
Grace Descanso.
Grace. Her hair was shorter than he remembered. But her face still held a curious mix of intelligence and warmth and a kind of raw sexuality, the kind no woman could manufacture. It came from some molten liquid place deep inside.
It had been over five years since Guatemala, and yet he instantly felt the roiling emotions he’d experienced standing next to her in that makeshift shed assisting her as she doctored, felt the remembered cautious optimism, the laughing connection, and then the quiet certainty, born of hope and fostered in every act of kindness, every molecule of her hard, clean presence, that they belonged together then and always, that neither time nor space nor act of God could separate them.
That she was the woman he was willing to die for.
Die for, perhaps, but not give up the story for.
And so it is, and was, and always shall be, amen.
His career was not a cold thing. It was a sinuous presence, alive, a shape-shifter, luring him always with the next seductive thing just over the horizon, the eternal quest to get to the bottom of things, to get it right.
For a brief moment he’d been certain he could have it all.
She was the one who got away. She was his great What If.
They’d been in a dangerous spot and he’d left her there; he knew it was dangerous and he’d left her there, to meet whatever fate was hers while he went into the next country, and then the next, dogging a lead that melted into lies, that changed form, that became a breathless and sensational story that faded away into a yellow dawn, leaving him stunned and awake for the first time in months, with a bitter taste of fear and regret in his mouth. And afraid for her, for what he’d done. For what he had not.
He’d come back for her then and she was gone and there was nothing but scorched earth, and she’d stayed gone for the longest time and to be honest, It wasn’t all bad, his work murmured, She was a distraction, an inconvenience, a minor character in the play of your life.
And now there she was like some apparition, standing there with her head tucked, rushing away from the cameras into a waiting car.
He watched the piece straight through and turned it off.
Jeb poked his head inside the door. ‘Ready?’
Mac nodded.
Jeb zipped up his leather jacket. ‘We might get whapped around a little up there. Expect some turbulence.’
Mac already knew that.
FIVE (#ulink_891dc2e8-d89a-51b7-af60-52643e8d2c80)
He’s coming for you. I came to save you, warn you.
It played through her mind all night, darting through her dreams, leaving her troubled and drenched in sweat.
He’s after you. The Spikeman.
A warning, specifically for her. How else would he have known her name?
You need to run, Grace.
And if it was a legitimate threat, it meant she’d killed the only person who could lead her to the truth. She was a sitting duck now, stalled in the crosshairs, easy pickings for whatever fresh lunatic came lurching out of the muck whispering her name.
She gave up trying to sleep as dawn washed the boats in the harbor a pale shade of gold. The water was a gunmetal gray and the sand looked cold. She took Helix outside and walked him quickly, sticking to side streets, eyes darting, looking for danger, wondering if when it came she’d even recognize it. Helix was no help; there wasn’t a person that his joyous broken body didn’t love. The street was quiet when she unlocked the door afterward and let him in, and she was relieved to be done, wondering if that’s the way it was going to be now, always looking behind her, scared.
She took a shower and studied herself in the closet mirror. Her skin looked unnaturally pale, and smudges accented her dark eyes. She lifted her black hair off her neck and studied the damage. The bruise on the right side of her neck was as big as a fist, and her jawline, still strong – although at thirty-two, time was waging its inexorable battle – was faintly discolored. The bruise was turning an interesting shade of purple. She smiled bleakly into the mirror. At least he’d missed her teeth.
He’s the Spikeman. He transmits signals through the wires in my brain.
Yeah, right. Not anymore, sweetheart. She put on a turtleneck.
Jeanne was still sleeping on the foldout sofa in the family room as Grace carried Katie’s clothes into the kitchen and made coffee. She could hear the scratchy sound of Jeanne’s gerbils stirring in their cage. The gerbils were Jeanne’s pets, lab animals from her old life as a medical researcher. They’d never worked at the same place, but when Grace had been ready to get a sponsor, Jeanne’s connection to science had been one of the things that made Grace trust her. Science didn’t lie. Both women appreciated that.
Grace got out a pencil and tablet, her mind blank. Months ago, she’d taken a game from her own childhood and tweaked it, using it to make Katie’s transition into the school week easier. It had morphed into Katie’s favorite, the game they always played on Mondays to get dressed.
The Timer Game involved everything Katie loved: clues, a race against time, and at the end, if she beat the timer, a small treat to kick-start the day. It was helping Katie identify words and begin to grasp the passage of time, but now, October, all the easy combinations of rhymes and hiding places had been exhausted. Grace kept the old clues in a kitchen drawer. She riffled through them. It reminded her of sorting recipes, wondering if it was too soon again to try the meatloaf.
She found some clues she could modify and worked silently, concentrating. Jeanne appeared in the doorway arch, hair springy, a pink kimono cinched around her waist. She was in her midfifties and looked older. Alcohol and too much time in the sun had thickened her skin into a deep web of lines. She had dyed her hair a defiant shade of red that both moved and amused Grace. This was a woman who would not go quietly. Soberly and with a bad knee, but not quietly.
‘Coffee.’ Jeanne eased into a chair. Helix woofed a greeting and Jeanne absently scratched his head as he settled himself at her feet.
‘Bad night?’ Grace poured a cup and gave it to her.
‘When are you going to tell her?’ Jeanne stared at the clues. ‘Oh, God, Monday.’
‘Yeah, I have to hide all this stuff before she wakes up.’ Grace scooped up Katie’s clothes and bent to pick up Spot Goes to the Farm, splayed open on the kitchen floor. She folded Katie’s T-shirt into the book, putting them under the kitchen sink along with the correct clue.
‘Mommy?’ The voice was coming from the stairwell upstairs.
‘I’m coming,’ Grace called. ‘I’ll be right there.’
‘You don’t want her finding out at school.’ Jeanne stared at Grace across the cup rim.
‘I’ll tell her, okay?’ Grace said irritably. ‘But not right now.’ She ran into the living room and hid Katie’s underpants along with a clue. From upstairs came the sound of a toilet flushing.
‘I’m using your shower.’ Jeanne was making her way to the stairs, leaning on her cane.
‘Go for it.’
‘Mommy?’ Katie’s voice was imperious, the queen summoning her court.
‘Coming!’ Grace shouted as she trotted into the kitchen and grabbed the timer. She stuffed Katie’s shorts and a clue into the family room bookshelf behind a tub of clay, dropped Katie’s Air Walkers next to the cage holding Jeanne’s gerbils, and scanned the room, trying to find some small treat. She settled on a pack of balloons she’d bought for the party and slid one into the final note, putting it under a shoe and covering everything with the cage blanket.
‘Mommy!’ Katie bellowed from upstairs. Helix perked up, ears lopsided, and trotted off to join her. Grace took a slow breath and climbed the stairs.
Katie waited in bed, eyes closed, pouting, Helix next to her on the quilt. ‘If you played this game, you’d lose.’
Grace stood the first clue on the top bookshelf next to the Peace Beanie Baby. ‘Well, guess what? Keep your eyes closed, honey; Helix, down.’ She pulled him off the bed and he grunted and flopped on the floor. ‘I played this game with my dad and your Uncle Andy when I was a kid and I was really good at it.’
She slid the scalloped socks she was holding under the bed ruffle along with the last clue and stood at the side of the bed, her hand on the timer.
‘Okay, at the count of three, I start the timer and you open your eyes. One … two …’
Katie’s eyes popped open. She scanned the room and spotted the note. ‘Three!’ She scrambled out of bed and flew to the bookshelf.
‘Three,’ Grace finished, giving the timer a brisk turn. Sixty seconds. Katie snatched up the first clue and opened it.
‘Today … is,’ Katie sang out.
‘You can read that?’ Grace settled onto the floor.
‘Mommy, that’s how all the clues start, so now I know those words.’ She stabbed her finger at the next word. ‘Mah … mah … Mommy?’
‘Today is Mommy? That’s silly.’
Katie grinned and threw her arms around Grace. ‘Today is Mommy, silly dilly Mommy.’ She beamed, her goodness radiating, at making this small joke.
From down the hall came the sound of a shower starting.
‘Who’s here?’
‘Jeanne. Remember? You have Show and Tell today with the gerbils.’
‘I just want to be with you.’ Katie crawled into her lap. ‘I need you to read these today. You pretend I’m little and I can’t read anything yet. Read the whole thing.’ She smiled sunnily.
‘Okay. Look at the words while I point.’
Katie repositioned herself and Grace smelled the ripe sleep smell of her young skin. Grace pointed and read aloud:
‘Today is MondayHere we goYour socks are close bySomeplace low.’
‘Someplace low, someplace low,’ Katie muttered, rolling to her knees and scanning the carpet. Grace saw a wink of hot pink under the bed ruffle. Katie scrambled to it. ‘Aha!’
The timer dinged. ‘You beat it. You beat the timer. I didn’t hide those very well, did I?’
‘Nope,’ Katie said cheerfully. She pulled on both socks and trotted back to Grace with the second clue. Grace reset the timer and read:
‘Far from hereIs underwearNear a windowDown the stair.’
‘Down the stair!’ Katie urged. ‘Come on!’
‘No running on the stairs!’
Katie shot ahead, running. Helix joined her, his leg banging on each step. The staircase opened into the living room and by the time Grace had made her way down, Katie was yanking on a pair of flowered underpants under her nightie, Helix prancing and yipping in tight circles around her.
‘Come on, hurry!’ Katie thrust a clue at Grace, and Grace reset the timer and read aloud:
‘Your T-shirt’s pinkAnd if you lookUnder a sinkIt’s in a book.’
‘This is too easy today,’ Katie protested, heading for the kitchen.
‘Maybe you’re just too good.’
Katie bent and opened the door under the kitchen sink and pulled out the Spot book and the T-shirt. She squirmed out of her nightie and pulled the T-shirt over her head. ‘Read,’ she commanded, her voice muffled.
Grace reset the timer and read the next clue as Katie’s face breathlessly emerged.
‘So take the bookPut it awayThen take a lookBehind the clay.’
‘I didn’t leave this book out.’
‘Helix likes to read at night when we go to bed.’
‘You’re funny.’ Katie carried the book through the archway into the family room, glancing at the rumpled foldout bed and covered cage. She stood for a moment staring at the shelves jammed with games, books, abandoned dolls. She found the clay bin and moved it aside, snatching up the shorts and a clue.
‘Put the book away!’ Grace reminded, as Katie pulled on her blue shorts. A thumping sound like a heavier Helix signaled the approach of Jeanne, making her way slowly with her cane down the stairs into the kitchen. Katie shoved the book onto the shelf as Grace reset the timer and read:
‘You’re almost done.To find your shoesLook by a cage.No time to snooze!’
‘Well,’ Katie sniffed confidently. She pulled the blanket off the cage and sat down next to the gerbils. Yin padded in a revolving wheel. At almost five, he was elderly, and his back was a slow-moving checkerboard blur of brown and white fur laid out in a neat grid of alternating squares. Helix nosed the cage and yipped.
‘Stop already, Helix,’ Grace said. ‘It’s not like you’ve never seen gerbils before.’
Through the archway in the small, sunny kitchen, Jeanne poured kibble into a porcelain bowl and the sound brought Helix clacking into the kitchen as Katie put on her first shoe and adjusted the Velcro straps. She found the note and the balloon under the second shoe and put it on before she handed the note to Grace to read out loud. Grace had written in block letters:
‘You have fun!At school, at playAnd know I love you!All the day!’
‘That was fast today,’ Katie said wistfully.
Grace was silent, thinking about how she still had to tell her daughter what had happened, how her instinct was to delay. ‘Come on, sweetie, maybe you can practice at breakfast.’
‘Okay, so the front page is the section you don’t want to read,’ Jeanne said. She turned to a new section. ‘Oh, and also Metro. You can skip right over that part today.’
Grace shot her a look.
‘Why?’ Katie asked. She looked up from her bowl, where she had been picking out all the letter M’s and putting them in a soggy row on the table.
Grace reached for a hairbrush on the counter and moved behind her. ‘Tip your head.’
‘Why doesn’t Mommy want to read the front page or Metro, either?’ Katie said more loudly. Grace brushed through a golden tangle, snapping a tie around Katie’s ponytail.
‘You want to practice now? Pretend you’re holding Yin up in front of the class?’
Jeanne glanced pointedly at the kitchen clock. She was wearing a blue muumuu that matched her vivid blue eyes. Her eyebrows rose in penciled wings that waggled, giving Grace the clear message that time was passing and she had a job to do. Katie was absorbed in the soggy cereal, oblivious.
‘I’ll tell everybody Jeanne did it. She’s a scientist and she did it.’
‘Was,’ Jeanne corrected. She reached across the table and snapped a dead leaf off an iris. She’d brought a bouquet the night before. Jeanne’s home overlooked a canyon and she cultivated flowers in her backyard.
Part of what Grace had learned from her sponsor during the three years they’d been paired in AA was the names of flowers. The other part was more subtle, and had to do with how to live life. Grace was working on not beating herself up so much. She’d never drunk when she was pregnant, no matter how bad the flashbacks; that was the big one. But she was still working on facing things head-on. She had no idea how she was going to tell Katie.
‘And it didn’t hurt them,’ Katie said.
‘No,’ Jeanne said.
‘Okay, pretend I’m holding Yin.’ Katie stroked a finger down an imaginary back. ‘See, we each carry these things inside – these fighter things …’ She looked to Jeanne for help.
‘T cells.’
‘Right. And they’re like commandos, like Rambo or something, and they fight with everything they think’s bad. So …’ She stopped, her knowledge exhausted.
‘So what happened was,’ Jeanne picked up the thread, ‘scientists figured out a way to make it be okay.’ She hesitated and cut a quick look at Grace. ‘Your mom actually did this kind of thing when she was a doctor.’
Grace froze over the paper, waiting, always waiting for Katie to ask why: why she’d quit doctoring. Jeanne shot her a look of apology, a shrug, a what was I thinking? look.
Katie beamed at her mother, oblivious, and crowed, ‘But now she does CSI, like on TV.’
Jeanne’s shoulders relaxed. ‘That’s right. So. This little guy started out brown. And Yang, the one in the cage –’
‘He bites, that’s why we left him there. He’s the all-white one,’ Katie said.
‘Usually you can’t take white fur and put it on a gerbil that’s brown.’
‘They’d fight,’ Katie said. ‘Not gerbils. Those fighter things. Those T things.’
Jeanne nodded. ‘So we figured out a way to fool the brown fur into thinking the white fur was okay. It’s called breaking the immunity barrier and it’s a pretty big deal.’
Katie grinned and Jeanne reached across the table and gave her a high-five.
‘Great, you did great,’ Grace said. She hesitated and took a sip of coffee. ‘Honey, you know how we had to leave Party Savers yesterday?’
Katie’s eyes warily shot up. ‘You want to put the treat in my shoe?’
Grace took the curled balloon off the table, lifted Katie’s feet easily onto her lap, and pried apart a tiny pocket on the shoe. There were two secret pockets on each shoe, flat and sealed with Velcro, where Katie liked to stash emergency treats. Grace reached in and pulled out a dime.
‘Something bad happened yesterday. At work.’
She felt a small tremor run through Katie’s foot. She sealed the dime back up and opened the next pocket. Bubble gum. She closed the pocket and opened one on the other shoe. It was empty. She rolled the small pink balloon and stuffed it carefully into the pocket, sealing the Velcro, taking her time.
‘That’s why I got the bruise. I’m fine. That’s the thing. I’m okay.’
Katie’s eyes dilated to almost black. Grace knew it was Katie’s oldest fear, losing the only parent she’d ever known.
‘A man hurt some people –’
‘No! I won’t hear!’ She clamped her hands against her ears.
‘– and Mommy ended up having to hurt him.’
‘NO!’ Katie scrambled out of her seat and flung herself into Grace’s lap, her small arms tight. Grace held her and could feel her heart beat.
‘Don’t talk. Don’t.’
‘I won’t. But somebody might at school. That’s why I brought it up.’
‘What happened?’
Here it was. In a perfect world, no terrified kids ran screaming out of schools, no splintered car bombs mangled babies, no planes crashed into buildings crumpling into a blue sky.
‘Some people died yesterday.’
‘Oh.’ It was a wail, low and heartrending.
‘Mommy’s fine.’
‘Daddy died.’
‘It wasn’t like that, honey.’
‘No, no,’ Katie moaned. ‘Daddy died. You can’t die, you can’t.’
Grace murmured over and over like a song, a prayer, ‘It’s okay, Katie, it’s okay, everything’s fine, Mommy’s fine, nothing bad’s going to happen.’
Another lie.
SIX (#ulink_52346fea-75dc-58d3-ac0c-e8d4b5e6d7bc)
Grace stopped at the post office on Cañon and mailed Katie’s letter, feeling a sharp stab of anxiety. Katie should have nothing more important to worry about than holding Yin by his neck so he didn’t nip her during Show and Tell, not thinking about whether something terrible would happen to her mother.
He’s coming for you.
Not if Grace could find him first.
The vehicle-processing storage facility was across from Lindbergh Field on Aerodrive. Grace parked, identified herself to the guard on duty, and told him what she needed.
‘Can’t miss it. It’s outside around back.’
The taco van was wrapped in a tent of visqueen supported by a wooden frame. It was a mideighties modified Volkswagen, originally dark blue, layered with grime and paint. She caught the reek of stove grease and Super Glue.
‘Grace.’ Paul stepped around the van, gripping a bologna sandwich. ‘You okay?’
‘Little shaky. Nice.’ She surveyed the tent. ‘Christo should be worried.’
‘He is,’ Paul said mildly. ‘Looks just like the Reichstag after he wrapped it in silver fabric, only smaller and cheesier.’
He took a bite of sandwich and his eyes went to the bruise on her jaw.
‘It’s taking what? Twenty pouches to print it?’ The police Super Glue came in foil pouches, simple to use, but costly on something this big.
‘Nah, the bean counters wouldn’t approve that, even on this one. I got creative. Used aluminum pie pans at each corner with a couple of vaporizers and squeezed out Super Glue I bought at Long’s Drug. Everybody wins.’
‘Yeah, right, except Eddie Loud.’
‘Hey, he’s the whacked-out bad guy, Grace. Not you.’
Looking at the tent made her realize what Paul wasn’t saying. How much the department was putting into processing this one. And the reason why.
‘Not many senators’ sons drive taco vans and wind up dead.’
‘You can play this one through any way you want, Grace, but it’s still going to stink. We should have good prints by late afternoon.’
‘What do you expect to find?’
‘At this point? I’m not sure.’ His jowls sagged and his eyes drooped, his usual look after a good night’s sleep. ‘I heard the first toxes from the ME said Loud was cranked.’
‘Makes sense.’ Grace had a flash of Eddie’s jangly energy. ‘Mind if I take a look?’
‘Have at it. There is something you might find interesting.’ Paul put down his sandwich and positioned his face against the cloudy plastic, looking through the window into the dim interior. Grace squinted next to him. She made out vague shapes, open chip bags, the stove. Soft white particles dusted the grill and cabinets.
‘What am I looking at?’
Paul pointed at something through the filmy visqueen and Grace took another look.
‘The kitchen timer? Is that it?’ It was a small white timer with big black numbers, sitting on the counter next to an open bag of taco shells. Grace had used an almost identical one that morning playing the Timer Game.
Paul shook his head. ‘No, that.’
She still didn’t see it.
‘Loud was wired.’ Paul pulled a Dr Pepper out of his jacket and drank.
‘Wired. What are you talking about?’
‘Right out of the Spy Shop Catalog. A tiny video cam attached to his shirt button. We think from the setup, there was a mixer right there on the counter, and I don’t mean the Martha Stewart kind.’ He pointed. ‘Whoever was in here left behind a connector cable.’
‘You think somebody was in here? Recording this?’
Paul shrugged. ‘Too soon to say. Eddie Loud’s minicam button in his shirt could turn out to be a prop, not real, not with a signal transmitting what was recorded.’
He took another swig of his drink.
‘Or it’s out there, in cyberspace, the killings.’ She stared at Paul, her gaze troubled.
‘You okay?’ he asked again.
‘He said my name, Paul, right before he tried to kill me. He warned me about somebody called the Spikeman who was coming to get me.’
‘We don’t know yet what we have here,’ Paul reminded her. He finished the sandwich and drained the can, crushing it and tucking it into the pocket of his brown polyester jacket.
A short fat man rounded the building, moving like his hip joints were killing him. His shiny bald head caught the light and for a second, Grace saw the taco van reflected like a miniature hologram. Tan work pants ballooned over a huge belly, cinched with suspenders the colors of a Portuguese flag: green, red, yellow. He was scowling and waving his fists.
‘Oh, shit. I told the guard not to let this guy in.’
The man was yelling in a torrent of Portuguese, fury mottling his face.
‘Calm down, Mr. Esguio.’ Paul moved forward cautiously, his palms raised and flat.
‘Calm down!’ Esguio cried in English. ‘You have stolen my van! My work! How can I calm down when you have stolen my van and won’t give it back!’
‘Okay, Mr. Esguio, I know you’re upset –’
Esguio lunged toward Paul and shoved him backward. They grappled. It was like watching a strongman contest where the leading contestant was charged with pushing a semi. Paul skidded a half step back, losing ground as Esguio moaned and smacked a hand to his heart and flopped forward. Paul managed to brace himself and catch Esguio before he toppled.
‘Oh, my God,’ Paul said. ‘He’s having a heart attack. Is he okay? Ask him.’
Grace asked him in rapid-fire Portuguese. Esguio cracked open an eye and answered, his voice pitiful. His eyes were the same dark brown as hers, making him look vaguely familial. He was as old as her aunts. They probably all went to school together. Dated. Divorced each other at least once.
‘What’s he saying?’
‘He wants to know how long you’re keeping the van.’
‘About his health.’
‘He’s fine.’
‘The van,’ Esguio prodded. Paul tipped him to his feet.
‘Try two or three years,’ Paul said. ‘He’s okay, though, right? You okay?’
‘Two or three years!’ Esguio moaned in English.
‘You should have thought of that before getting a killer to drive it,’ Paul said. ‘Did you even check Eddie’s license? Did Eddie even have a license?’
‘Now listen here,’ Esguio bristled.
Grace laid a hand on his arm and smiled winningly at him. ‘How about I take you out for breakfast. Would you like that, sir?’
Esguio stiffened with pride and yanked his arm free. He started moving through the cars and Grace fell into step next to him.
‘Wait.’ Paul trotted after them. ‘Mr. Esguio. Sir. You can’t go with her. You’re not supposed to tell anybody anything.’
‘Paul.’ Grace stopped, her voice reasonable. ‘Say for a second maybe there was a TV-remote setup in there. Was there audio and video equipment in your taco van, Mr. Esguio?’
‘What?’
‘TV stuff. To take pictures.’
‘No TV. Just a grill and a refrigerator. What are you talking about?’
She turned back to Paul. ‘Say there was a TV-remote setup. Say Eddie really was trying to warn me. That means somebody very bad might be after me. And if he is, Eddie’s made it clear the bad guy doesn’t have plans to invite me to his mother’s house for dinner either, unless she lives in the Bates Motel. So if Mr. Esguio can help me find the bad guy first, before he finds me and kills me – and that could be the plan here, Paul, to kill me – that’s good. Works for me.’
Mr. Esguio looked from Paul to Grace. His chins moved like a hula dancer.
‘I could use a cup of coffee. Decaf.’
SEVEN (#ulink_a2c050ac-2da6-5c3b-bf6b-a7b780de8b0c)
Esguio tapped three pills into his hand and swallowed them dry. ‘Thyroid, heart. Cholesterol. Take my advice. Never get old.’
‘I’ll remember that.’
They sat in a vinyl booth at the back of Denny’s on Rosecrans, a couple of blocks from where Esguio said he lived. Grace ordered French toast; Esguio stuck with coffee. He had wide lips and took small sips of air as he talked, as if breathing was hard work.
‘Descanso. You one of Francisco Descanso’s grandkids?’
‘You knew my grandfather?’
‘Sure. Everybody knew him. Terrible thing, what happened to his son.’
Grace blinked and looked away.
She could feel his face change. She should have expected it. Esguio was Portuguese. Of course he’d know about her father. Back then everybody Portuguese lived in a tight community in Point Loma, fished on boats passed down to their sons.
‘Must have been, what? Thirty years ago?’
‘Twenty-one. I was eleven when he washed overboard.’
Eleven when Lottie dragged her and her kid brother, Andy, out of the warmth and safety of Point Loma, into a life on the road. Grace had spent the last of her childhood shuttling from one beer-soaked bar to another, living out of cardboard suitcases while Lottie warbled in bars, living out her fantasy of becoming a country-western singer.
If her father had lived, Grace wouldn’t feel so damaged today. By any standard but her own, Grace had done well, but every step along the way had been punctuated with failure and despair and terrible doubts. Goodness was a fragile thing, chipped daily out of the rocky soil of her spirit. Lottie, on the other hand, soared like a vast overwrought blimp, gliding over the wreckage of Grace’s childhood, never coming down to earth long enough to be tethered to anything as pesky as consequences.
‘Your father was a good man,’ Esguio said. ‘You know that.’
Grace shrugged. ‘Thanks. Always good to hear.’
Esguio sipped his coffee. She could feel him watching her, probing the pain, and in a courtly way stepping back. He frowned and shifted gears.
‘Wait. You’re the one we sent to Guatemala, right? From the parish. We were in Portugal that year. We heard she died over there. Sister Mary Clare.’
‘Yeah. Yeah, she did.’ The bad things crowded into her mind, fresh from their naps and grinning, wanting to play.
‘We heard there was a fire.’
A bad thing bared its blunt teeth and cocked its shaggy head, and Grace could feel the whiff of its breath on her face. Her heart was starting to hammer. She took a deep breath and let it out, trying to find her quiet place, quiet the demons.
‘We heard you were going to be a heart doctor. Work with kids. Then you quit.’
Grace studied her hands and looked up. ‘Mr. Esguio, I’m sorry about your van. They have to process it for prints and –’
‘That doesn’t take two years.’
The waitress put down the plates. Esguio gazed longingly at her French toast.
‘No, but when something’s been used in the commission of a felony, when somebody’s been murdered and that was the vehicle used to transport the suspect …’
Esguio watched as she poured syrup, a slow dawning growing across his face. He looked pained. ‘I’m never going to see that van again in my lifetime, am I?’
‘Probably not.’ Grace shoveled in a forkful of food and washed it down with orange juice. ‘Mr. Esguio, somebody bad is after me. Somebody Eddie knew.’
‘No kidding,’ Esguio marveled. ‘Do the police know?’
‘I am the police.’ Or close enough. ‘That’s why I’m asking these questions and why it’s important you tell me what you know. How did you come to hire Eddie Loud?’
‘This recruiter came to the Portuguese Hall. Trying to place these folks. I got a card here someplace.’ Esguio fished it out of his wallet and passed it over the table.
NEW LIFE
giving those ready a second chance
CURTIS CRUMWALD, DIRECTOR
an outreach of the Center for BioChimera
‘He told us how the Center sounds like a science place, but it’s got a big hospital there, too. Where they do research, helping people. Eddie had problems, but he’d been in a halfway house three years, no incidents. It was all monitored. He’d never even had a parking ticket, Grace. Nothing. He even liked to cook.’ A small lost laugh.
‘Can I keep the card?’
‘Sure. I’m not going to be needing it. Know how much money is tied up in that van? I can’t believe it. Gone, poof, just like that. Damn. Two in one day.’
Some antenna tweaked. ‘What happened to the other van?’
‘Wasn’t a van, just a food cart, thank the good Lord and all His Saints.’ Esguio crossed himself. ‘Still.’
‘Tell me about the other guy you hired for the food cart. What happened to him?’
‘Woman.’ Esguio made a face and drained his water glass. ‘Heartburn. Acid reflux.’ He eyed her untouched water glass and Grace passed it over.
‘Thanks.’ He took a deep drink and crunched ice. ‘Where was I?’
‘The woman you hired to work your food cart,’ Grace prompted. ‘Something went wrong with it.’
‘Jazz Studio, that was her name. Should have been my first tip-off, right? Somebody with a fake name isn’t going to think twice about trashing the cart. I blame Eddie, though.’
‘How’s that?’
‘They had a big fight right beforehand. I think whatever he said got her stirred up.’
‘How’d they know each other?’
‘Hired them from the same place.’
Grace studied the card.
‘So this Jazz Studio and Eddie Loud are both outpatients at the Center for BioChimera. What were they being treated for?’
‘They never said what exactly. “Patient confidentiality.” That’s where they get you over the barrel. I should have stuck to distributing turkeys to St. Vincent’s at Christmas.’
‘Did Eddie Loud ever talk about video, or TV recording, or hidden cameras?’
‘Never. Although when he was really tired, he’d start acting like he thought somebody was after him, out to get him.’
Grace mulled that over. ‘Where’d you have Jazz working?’
‘The Center. Nice easy job, no stress. Everybody loves the food cart, right? And I thought it would be familiar. They had Jazz working in Records for a while so she knew the building.’
‘What happened?’
‘Her first day on the cart’s yesterday, Sunday? Gave her that on purpose, because it’s a light day at the Center, only people there are those who have to be. So she takes the cart to Records, where she used to work? Hadn’t been there ten minutes when she causes this ruckus and her old boss has to call security.’ Esguio shook his head.
‘Ever find out what set her off?’
‘No. But something scared her. Bad.’
Grace pushed the plates out of the way. ‘Any idea where she lives?’
Esguio shook his head. ‘Or Eddie either. They keep that part quiet. Jazz could be living at the Center now in a nice padded room, for all I know.’
‘Could I have your home number, if I have any more questions?’
He scribbled it on the back of a napkin and passed it over. ‘Know where it is? That Center for BioChimera?’
She looked away. ‘Oh, yeah.’
EIGHT (#ulink_1acbe08f-a8aa-565a-a44f-a107292ed65c)
The Center for BioChimera was part of a strip of high-end biotech research centers, hospitals, and the University of California, San Diego, in an area of La Jolla known as Biotech Mesa. Grace took 5 North to Genesee and Torrey Pines Road and made the familiar climb.
The view sweeping to the Pacific didn’t engage her; Grace was preoccupied with what she’d learned. Eddie Loud was mentally ill. How did a mentally ill outpatient at the Center for BioChimera driving a taco van get her name? What did Eddie Loud have to do with her?
The Center slanted in two wings facing the ocean, its back in a V toward the road. Three stories low to the ground, it resembled a Frank Lloyd Wright structure hewn out of the side of the ridge. Research labs and administrative offices fanned out in one wing; the other wing was a hospital specializing in transplants and immunological disorders.
The entrance to New Life was tucked behind Emergency in the hospital wing and faced out over a damp lawn, a tangle of trees, and the high Plexiglass fence closing off the steep drop leading to the waves smashing four hundred feet below. Grace wondered if they had jumpers.
She parked the car and entered the New Life waiting room, giving the receptionist her name. No, no appointment. Yes, she’d wait.
Pastel plaid chairs faced a coffee table covered with magazines. Grace read the bulletin board, a crammed assortment of admonishments to take meds, numbers to call if a client fell apart, a map of the hospital with an ‘X: You Are Here,’ and tips on ‘How to Put Your Best Foot Forward’ when going after that special minimum-wage job.
She sat. Five minutes later, a short man in his forties with glasses and a crew cut came through the door from the back rooms, face pink with exertion. ‘Grace Descanso?’
She stood up and extended her hand. ‘Yes, and you’re …’
‘Curtis Crumwald.’ A hard grip for a soft man. ‘Sorry for the wait. Had to drive my wife to a hair appointment. We’re down to one car.’
Crumwald made a face and motioned her through the door to the back. He wore neatly pressed Dockers and a shirt under a Stanford sweater pushed up his freckled arms. They passed a room set for a group – chairs in a circle, a second room with a copier, ratty sofa, and a Mr. Coffee. Tossed newspapers and Styrofoam cartons littered the laminated coffee table.
‘Harriet said you were interested in our program. Have job opportunities?’
‘No. Just questions.’
Crumwald stopped walking. ‘Are you a reporter?’ His voice was flat.
‘I was the forensic biologist Eddie Loud tried to kill.’ It hung there. So I killed him.
Crumwald took off his glasses and wiped them on his shirt. ‘Come in. Close the door.’
Client photos covered a large bulletin board in his office: grinning McDonald’s workers, a city employee stabbing trash at Shelter Island, a singing telegram dressed as a hot dog.
‘Where’s Eddie? I want to see his face.’
Crumwald pointed him out. Eddie Loud stood stiffly in front of the sparkling taco van, hair combed, pride and anxiety blazing across his face. He was wearing a pair of blue pants and a pressed shirt. He was gripping a bag of tacos, but gently, it appeared, so they wouldn’t crush.
‘Believe it or not, he was a kind man. Not violent. His poor parents.’
Grace shot him a measured look. ‘He killed a DEA chemist, a detective sergeant, and a uniformed police officer yesterday. Good men. And he did this to me.’ She raked down her turtleneck so he could see the purple mark left when Eddie had grabbed her.
Crumwald blinked. ‘I’m sorry. Please. Have a seat.’
She took one across from the desk, and he sat heavily in his chair and placed his hands flat on the desk as if to compose himself.
‘I was hired on faith, understand? To cobble together a program assisting those the world has no interest in helping. And now –’
‘He was in a halfway house. And this program for work. Was he in rehab?’
‘I can’t answer that. That’s confidential.’
‘He’d dead, Mr. Crumwald. It’s going to come out.’
‘When you … saw him. Did it look like Eddie was on some kind of drug?’
‘He was amped like a light show. Cranked so high his brain was frying. I’d bet money.’
The air went out of him and Crumwald slumped in his chair. He had a squishball stress reliever next to a photo of a placidly smiling woman. He picked up the ball and squeezed. He looked defeated.
‘That’s so unbelievable. He knew if he tried that he’d be gone. He really wanted to stay.’
‘Did Eddie ever bring up anybody called the Spikeman?’
Crumwald shook his head. ‘But I’m not the one he talked to. When he did talk. He didn’t do too much talking when he was medded properly.’ Crumwald looked up, still back on what she’d said about drugs. ‘He could have just stopped taking his meds.’
‘I don’t know what was wrong with him, Mr. Crumwald, but if not taking meds is enough to get him to hack up three men with a butcher knife and start on me, then sure, stick with that.’
‘They feed off each other energywise. Yesterday he was agitated in group and later, another client fell apart. Not as spectacularly but … big mess we’re still cleaning up.’
Jazz Studio.
‘Did Eddie Loud say anything in group that would have alerted you?’
‘You mean, so I could have stopped it?’ Crumwald sounded defensive and aggrieved and he squished the ball harder. It made a squelching sound like a trapped mouse.
‘No, just –’
‘Just what, Ms. Descanso? I run this place on a shoestring and a prayer, and if I stopped every client from going out that door who thought sometimes he was God or the next Bill Gates – or Bill Gates himself – I’d never have confidence to send any of them out. They’re trying. Beset by demons, but trying. They haven’t given up. Where are you going with this?’
‘Is there any reason Eddie should have known who I was?’
‘None that I know of.’
‘Because he did. Right before he tried to kill me, he said my name and warned me about somebody he called the Spikeman.’ She couldn’t keep the tremor out of her voice.
Crumwald looked genuinely shocked. ‘He said your name? I don’t understand.’
‘That makes two of us. If you have anything, anything at all, I need to know it now.’
Crumwald stood heavily and looked out the window. ‘Anything else needs to come from higher up the food chain, if you know what I mean. Warren Pendrell is the head of this place.’
He said the name as if that should scare her.
‘Warren Pendrell,’ he repeated.
NINE (#ulink_d5ce571e-f7b8-5a91-b241-05f24737a9fc)
Talking to Warren Pendrell was the last thing she wanted. It’s what she’d been trying to avoid by going to Crumwald first, and already she could feel the familiar constriction in her throat.
She walked out of the outpatient facility and got in her car, driving across the parking lots that connected the research and hospital sides and reparking so she could make a speedy getaway afterward. The dignity of her exit would be lost if she had to tramp across the gravel and succulent beds back the way she’d come. Not that he’d be watching.
But maybe someone was, out of the blank-faced windows in the high granite building, and that was troubling. A faint wire mesh covered a set of windows on the second floor, and Grace snatched another glance, disquieted. The wire was new, she was certain, and she wondered if that’s where she’d find Jazz. The building rose like a granite monolith under a vivid blue sky with a faint tracing of clouds. A perfect San Diego day, covering what?
He’s coming for you … He’s the Spikeman.
She locked up and entered the building under an imposing sign etched in granite: CENTER FOR BIOCHIMERA.
Next to the sliding glass doors was a smaller sign in black letters: WARNING! THIS IS A LATEX-FREE SITE. ALL LATEX PRODUCTS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN!
Grace scanned the lobby. A young woman sat reading at the information kiosk in the middle of the room. A small coffee and pastry area lay to the left, most of the tables occupied by interns and nurses, none she recognized. On the walls hung pictures of the groundbreaking, Nobel laureates who did research at the Center, and an unseemly number of photos featuring Warren as the beaming centerpiece, his shock of white hair glowing along with his teeth.
The V of the building opened into floor-to-ceiling windows, revealing the view. Here the ocean was a churning presence, a gray and blue highway carrying Navy traffic and fishing trawlers out to sea. The skyline of La Jolla glinted in the bright sun, and far to the south, Mexico’s Coronado Islands rose like the purple humps of a prehistoric sea monster.
On scattered sofas people waited. They waited in the halls, milling around. On chairs by the entrance. They waited in pairs and family groupings and alone. It seemed to Grace as if that waiting defined the essence of the Center. It was saturated with a pain born of that waiting, and a longing so intense it seemed distilled, the longer she was away from it.
She headed past the information kiosk to the elevators. A family marshaled a boy of about ten out into the hall, his wheelchair sticking as it bumped over the elevator groove. His younger sister hopped next to him in excitement. The mother had a trembly half-smile on her face, as if smiling even that much was too costly.
Grace rode the elevator alone to three. The joke was, the Center was built on a bluff and run on one, and Grace had heard it repeated more times than she could count by jealous colleagues of Warren’s who didn’t realize they knew each other personally. She never repeated it; it was petty, but it spoke clearly to the empire he had built and the enemies he’d made.
Damaged adults and children wounded by disorders and limping from attacks leveled against them by their own immune systems flocked to the Center for specialized treatment, hoping for the miracle cure that would stop their bodies from viciously destroying themselves. Warren Pendrell promised nothing, but something in his manner must have communicated hope. People lined up for clinical trials.
She’d spent part of her residency on loan from Johns Hopkins working in the Center’s sophisticated pediatric heart transplant unit, and Warren had taken her immediately under his wing. Those were the giddy days when she was a rising star and everything was working, but that was a long time ago and when she’d left medicine, part of what she’d jettisoned was the safety of his mentor-ship, the easy way doors opened and the belief that anything professionally was still possible. Now she approached his offices with the caution and respect they deserved.
The elevator opened and she faced smoked-glass doors with Warren’s name engraved in brass: DR. WARREN PENDRELL, DIRECTOR.
Another name was inscribed in smaller script underneath: LABS OF DR. LEE ANN BENTLEY.
Grace felt the beginning of a headache, seeing the name. Lee had been a coldly amoral researcher hungry for grants and recognition when Grace had known her five years before. Now she’d moved up to the major leagues, sharing lab space with Warren himself. Grace had managed to avoid seeing Lee in earlier visits. But today she didn’t feel lucky.
Grace opened the heavy door leading to the reception area. This smaller lobby glowed in a soft shade of gold, the center of the room dominated by a carved marble statue of an angel and child. A drug salesman looked up incuriously from a trade magazine and went back to reading, his briefcase of samples bulging at his feet.
Grace went to the counter and waited as the receptionist finished a call. The receptionist was middle-aged, efficient, with a helmet of dyed black hair and a chest that jutted forward like the prow of an immense ship. She put down the telephone and turned to Grace.
‘Yes?’ Her face was neutral. She’d missed a spot with her eyebrow pencil, and one of her brows had a small, disconcerting patch of white in the middle of what otherwise was a perfect walnut brown arched wing.
‘Cynthia. Could you please alert Warren I’m here.’
‘And you are?’
Cynthia knew exactly who she was. This was a petty humiliation she put Grace through every time. ‘Grace. Descanso.’
‘Identification?’
Grace pulled out her crime lab ID instead of her driver’s license and was heartened to see a quiver of surprise in Cynthia’s eyes before she recovered. Good. Let her think I’m here on official business. Serves her right.
‘Do you have an appointment?’ She touched her pearls. The necklace was so long she could hang herself.
‘No.’ Grace stared her down and felt a sharp surge of victory when Cynthia turned away first. She really needed to play more board games.
‘He’s very busy.’
‘He wants to see me.’
‘I’ll let him be the judge of that. Sit and wait.’ It was an order.
Grace smiled thinly and went to the window, looking out. Far away, hang gliders floated over a blue expanse of sea, and clouds threaded the soft sky. Behind her, she heard Cynthia whispering into a phone. The steel door behind the counter slid open.
‘Grace!’
Warren had a forceful way of dominating a room, his energy thrusting itself into the place moments before he spoke, which gave her the unsettled feeling of being constantly in the presence of a sonic boom. He was in his late sixties but tall and fit-looking. His silver-white hair was precision cut, and he wore dark linen trousers and a blue cashmere sweater that matched his eyes.
He bared his teeth in a smile. The door wickered shut behind him. He stepped into the lobby. ‘Cynthia taking good care of you?’
Grace shot a smug smile at Cynthia but it was wasted. Cynthia shuffled papers, pretending to be busy.
Warren didn’t wait for an answer. He gripped Grace’s elbow gently and moved her out of harm’s way as he stood for a moment under the retina scanner. The red light beamed into his eyes. He blinked and the door reopened.
‘Quickly, quickly.’
He led her back into a hallway as the steel door closed behind them. They were in a corridor with laboratories. Grace could hear a synthesizer whirring softly in a lab down the hall, and the muted sound of voices coming from a conference room.
Warren turned and studied her, and the heartiness in his face fell away and was replaced with anger. ‘He could have killed you, damn it. I’ve left three messages since yesterday. You couldn’t pick up the phone and let me know you were all right?’
‘I wanted to come in person.’ She wondered if he could tell she was lying. ‘I have questions about Eddie Loud.’
Warren glanced quickly at the conference room and Grace realized Warren didn’t want whoever was in there overhearing them.
‘Follow me. I’ve got a meeting going on so I don’t have much time.’
In all the years she’d known him, he’d always had a meeting going on. Something big.
Warren had started the Center as a shoestring biotech company thirty years earlier, and hit the jackpot with a drug that became widely used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, inhibiting the immune system from attacking the body’s own cartilage. He’d taken that money and bought land, eventually building the Center for BioChimera. Now the company had grown to over three thousand employees worldwide, with manufacturing plants scattered across the globe.
But it was the hospital side that had attracted her. The chance to work with pediatric heart transplant patients and pursue new methods of controlling transplant rejection. When she’d been offered a residency, she’d jumped at it.
Warren had immediately singled her out, something that stunned her and made her uneasy at the same time. She had no interest in following Warren Pendrell into hospital administration, but she soon learned his interest was more complicated.
He’d lost a daughter about her age, he confided finally. Warren’s pain at losing his daughter Sara, and Grace’s need to have a dad, melded during her work at the Center. That and a mutual passion for research and healing. He’d personally recommended her for a position at Cedars-Sinai after her residency, and had helped set up the two months she’d spent in Guatemala working in a remote mountain clinic.
And then she’d come back from Guatemala and dropped out of medicine and taken a job at the crime lab.
She’d never told him why and Warren never let it drop, how her place was back at the Center leading the assault on transplant rejection and doing heart surgery on kids, instead of wasting her talent in some two-bit job with the police, barely scraping by.
She’d delivered Katie at the Center when the time came, and later Katie had ear surgery as a baby there, but the relationship between Warren and Grace had grown increasingly strained until it had erupted in a frightening outburst of pyrotechnics, Warren insisting she tell him why she’d given up medicine, Grace holding to silence. He’d apologized but she sensed lurking beneath the surface a fierce need to control, a need he was barely able to keep in check. Now their contact was relegated to stray lunches and occasional phone calls.
‘Do you know how many people I’ve mentored here in all these years? Exactly two.’
‘Warren.’ It was the opening volley of a familiar war and she didn’t have the taste for it.
‘Fine, fine, I’ll stop.’
She followed him into his private library and waited as he scooped up an open reference book from a leather sofa. The room was large, airy, painted Italian custard.
A plaster fireplace vaulted in sweeping simplicity, surrounded by chairs in a rich palette of gold and red, accenting his favorite painting, a Degas that hung near his Italian rosewood writing desk. Two walls held floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. It was here he kept his collection of science journals, books on philosophy and religion and first-edition nineteenth-century European novels.
‘Sit anyplace.’ He turned his back on her and went to the window. ‘I’m relieved you’re all right, by the way,’ he said gruffly. ‘More relieved than you’ll know.’
She sank into the leather sofa. Soft sunlight floated through raw silk panels, spilling wide bands of light across the tiled floor.
He turned and she saw how tired he looked under the tan. ‘I don’t mean to be short. I’m under more pressure than usual this week, that’s all, and then when I heard how close you’d come to dying – well, it seems to have unhinged me. What do you need?’
‘Answers. You knew him personally, didn’t you? Eddie Loud.’
He gave her a long, measured look. ‘I think I’ll have a drink. May I get you something? Perhaps fresh papaya juice?’
‘Sounds wonderful.’
He went to the sideboard, glancing at the photograph of his daughter he kept in a small gilt frame. Taken years ago, it revealed a young woman with a strong jaw and merry eyes. She was lost in a corn maze, laughing, not sure which way led to the exit. It had been shot from above looking down, and the exit was within reach. She just couldn’t find it.
Losing her way seemed to have been a chronic problem. Sara had been a sophomore at Brandeis when she’d fallen in love with a foreign exchange student who police discovered was traveling with false papers and had a criminal record. He was deported and six weeks later, she’d dropped out of school and followed him to Central America. Warren sent a former Green Beret to capture her and drag her home, but she’d run away again, and this time he’d left her alone.
Warren’s gaze left the photo and settled on Grace. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘What do you need to know?’
She told him what Eddie Loud had said right before she killed him.
The color drained from his face. ‘Good God. You’re sure he said “He’s coming for you”? Those exact words?’
‘Yes. I’ll never forget it.’
Warren fixed their drinks, his face troubled. He handed Grace her glass and sat down, taking a long drink of scotch and rolling the heavy glass between his palms, studying the amber liquid. ‘“Run. He’s coming for you. The Spikeman.” Any ideas?’
She shook her head. ‘I was hoping it made sense to you.’ She took a sip of juice. It was sweet and wonderfully pulpy.
He was silent, mulling something over. He looked up.
‘He’s dead. Under the circumstances, I guess I can tell you some things.’
Warren drank some more and the ice clinked. He studied the glass.
‘Eddie Loud was schizophrenic. You know on the research side of the Center, we specialize in immunological disorders and treatment. We do the usual – arthritis, lupus, MS, transplant compatibility, but the last few years, since you left, we’ve added schizophrenia to the list. That’s what we do behind those wire windows on two.’
‘How can schizophrenia be an immunological disorder?’
‘Might not be, jury’s still out, but there’s a possibility that a simple virus in the fourth month in utero could contribute to a wiring problem significant enough to create it. We used magnetic resonance imaging and found structural defects in the temporal lobes, some cell changes. Anyway, we’re exploring whether we can reverse that damage on chromosome six – not just throwing drugs at the problem after the fact. It’s delicate and difficult.’
‘You were experimenting on Eddie Loud?’ It sounded colder than she’d intended, and Warren flinched and drained his glass.
‘Yes, he was enrolled in our experimental program and yes, the combination of gene therapy, drugs, and behavior modification seemed to be helping. I’ve known his dad four years or so. Eddie’s bounced around other treatment centers and Bert – that’s his dad, Senator Loud – heard about the work we were doing here and pleaded with me to take him. Big mistake. Clearly.’
Grace’s glass was empty and she put it down and slid her hands under her legs to warm them. ‘I don’t understand why he fixated on me.’
‘I don’t either.’ He shrugged. ‘There’s a chance he could have made it up. Eddie had a peculiar fascination for video. When he fell off his meds, he believed himself to be a hotshot reporter, going after the big story. In his room at the halfway house, they’d find equipment he’d ordered over the Internet and squirreled away, and once even props from a Hollywood set he’d managed to buy off eBay.’
She could see the headline: ALCOHOLIC CRIME LAB FORENSIC BIOLOGIST KILLS ALMOST DEFENSELESS MENTALLY ILL SON OF SENATOR.
‘That still doesn’t explain how he got my name and matched it to my face. And knew I was going to be at that particular meth house.’
Warren scrubbed his jaw with his knuckles. ‘God, what a mess.’
He put his glass down and moved to a wall of books. Long thin windows had been built into the shelves, revealing sudden views, as surprising as if the views themselves were a work of art. Soft clouds filtered across the narrow stamp of blue sky.
The shelf held a wooden toy of Sara’s that always reminded Grace of a parking garage, a series of small wooden ramps and painted wooden penguins. Warren absently touched the spring and the penguins clicked up a ramp, and the first one began its inexorable slide down the first chute into the turn. He wasn’t watching it. He was looking at her.
‘I have to tell you something in confidence, something that factors into all this. Want anything else to drink? Or a muffin or something?’
‘Thanks. I’m set.’
He made himself a second drink. The last penguin was ratcheting up a ladder to the top. It dipped its head and dove down the chute. He took a chair across from her.
‘Have you any idea how much this company’s worth?’
She shook her head.
‘The Center has developed, won regulatory approval for, and marketed over ten drugs dealing with specific immunology disorders: diabetes, Crohn’s, MS, transplants, cancer, AIDS.’
He paused. ‘It’s worth close to eight billion dollars, Grace. I know that because I just went through an extensive process of determining assets and liabilities. I’m selling.’
‘What?’
‘Just what I said. I built a world, and now I’m tired.’ He smiled dryly. ‘And perhaps a little old. I’ve never publicly traded the Center so it frees me in some ways to do slightly unorthodox things. Of course I have a team of high-priced experts, many of whom are sitting around my conference table right now wondering where the hell I am, but we’ve passed due diligence and it’s in escrow. We close at the end of the week. Everybody’s signed confidentiality agreements and noncompete clauses, and we’ve played it close to the vest. I’ve already signed off at the secretary of state’s office on a release of the name, so the new owners can continue using it.’
There was a quiet knock on the door and Warren’s assistant, a striking black woman named Karen, stuck her head in the door.
‘Sorry to interrupt, sir. The eastern sector pharmaceuticals rep has a plane to catch.’
Warren stood. ‘I’d appreciate it if you could stay. This will only take a minute.’
Grace nodded. Karen smiled neutrally and held the door open for Warren, closing it after him. They both retreated down the hall. Grace heard Warren’s voice in the conference room, muffled and hearty.
Eight billion dollars, Grace thought. To her it was Monopoly money, not real. She wondered what he was going to do with his share. His wife had died years before. All he had was this place. His telling her about it matter-of-factly, his trusting her with such a significant secret, troubled her. It had nothing to do with Eddie Loud and brought her no closer to finding Jazz Studio, and she feared it was his way of trying to hook her back in.
The door opened and Warren reappeared. He closed the door. ‘Sorry about that. I wouldn’t have told you if it wasn’t necessary, and of course this information is confidential and not to be shared.’
‘I understand.’
‘It’s a Swiss company called Belikond. They have their own marketing arm in place to smooth the way. They’ve pledged no personnel changes in the first twenty-four months, which makes it somewhat more palatable.’
‘The Center’s worth close to eight billion dollars?’ She was still on that.
‘Not just the Center. The manufacturing plants are in the mix, too, but the most significant assets are patents. The deal’s gone hard.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Belikond’s had to put hard money down, and whether the deal closes or not – and it will close, I assure you – the seller gets to keep the deposit.’ He paused. ‘Ten percent of the total purchase price is typical.’
She did the math in her mind and wished she were still drinking. She could use something a lot stronger than papaya juice.
‘And that seller getting to keep the hard money would be you.’
‘And others. Underwriting the Center are drug development companies, a cluster of university research deals, and some investment bankers willing to take huge risks. I’m the director but six others sit on the board, and getting them to agree on anything is like trying to get a bag full of cats to stop fighting. We’ve jumped through hoops the past ninety days – proof of title, physical inspection of the lands, the buildings, improvements – worldwide, Grace, not just here – and due diligence inspection of the IP’s. Intellectual properties. Checking that all the patents have been properly registered, and that there are no existing or potential claim infringements, and then dividing up each investor’s share. Oh, and then the lending bank sends over its own team and we do the dance all over again.’
‘And you’re closing when?’ She was certain he’d told her, she just couldn’t remember. She was on the verge of taking out a second mortgage on her house, just to repair the roof.
‘Delivery of assets, titles, full custody, and control gets turned over at the end of this week. I don’t have to be present, but I have to be on top of it.’
Under the tan, there were dark circles under his eyes.
‘My chunk – minus whatever part the government’s going to chip out for taxes – I want wired to an account in the Caymans. And since nobody but me has that access code, they’re going to electronically link me as the deal closes. I’ll have thirty seconds on my end to enter the access code, releasing my funds into my private account. If I miss that window, my share gets sent to my bank stateside, but for tax reasons, that’s something I’d like to avoid. My share is worth several hundred million dollars.’
The shock must have shown on her face. She looked around the immaculate space, studying his daughter’s photo so she wouldn’t have to meet his eyes. She wasn’t afraid of money and people who had it, but power tripped her up sometimes, and she could feel herself starting to fall.
‘So. You sell. You leave. Eddie Loud acted alone as a crazy person, God knows how he got my name. Nobody else is after me.’
‘Not exactly. I told you it was complicated. Yesterday, I got this.’
He went to his desk and unlocked the drawer and came back with a postcard. ‘Hand-delivered, left in a manila envelope for me downstairs at Information.’
The postcard was faintly blue in color, on handmade paper stock, with streaks of heavier blue weaving through it. There was no address or postmark. Warren Pendrell’s name had been typed on the message side, with a single typed sentence underneath: He’s coming for you, the Spikeman.
She turned the postcard over. Warren’s picture had been cut and pasted onto the postcard. It was blurred, shot as he stepped through the front door of the Center, a hand shading his eyes.
Imbedded in his chest was a crudely drawn butcher knife, dripping with blood.
‘“He’s coming for you, the Spikeman.” And the butcher knife. It’s the same threat, Grace. The same. One thing science teaches, there are no coincidences.’
‘You’re saying somebody could be after both of us? Who? Why?’
He shook his head. ‘I have no idea.’
‘I could take this in. Get somebody to run tests.’ She and Paul Collins were colleagues, but Marcie had worked next to Grace in the forensic biology lab for five years, and they were friends. The tall, emaciated, jumpy woman would figure out a way to have the postcard tested if Grace asked, even though fibers and documents were not handled in their lab, and the paper wasn’t saturated with biological fluids.
Warren shook his head. ‘The last thing I want is the police involved while I’m negotiating this deal. Businesses run on rumors and innuendo, Grace. The total valuation of the business has been in flux over the period of time we’ve negotiated, and I’m talking a flux that could cost us millions. I don’t want to hand Belikond anything else its team could use.’
‘Marcie’s very discreet.’
‘Grace, I’m serious. I want things quiet and on schedule. I’m telling you this because I want you to protect yourself. Let me rephrase that. I want to protect you. And Katie.’
‘We’re okay.’
‘God, you’re impossible. If you change your mind …’
She nodded. He held out his hand for the postcard and she reluctantly gave it to him. He relocked it in his desk and rang the receptionist.
‘Yes. Cynthia. Please alert Lee Bentley we’re on our way.’
Grace felt a visceral surge of panic and anger. He was doing it again. Broadsiding her.
‘Warren, you should have asked me first.’
‘So you could say no?’
‘I don’t have time.’
‘Make it.’ He reached for her hand.
TEN (#ulink_f970dfeb-37ed-577c-88d5-aa4aac987c91)
Warren walked down the brightly lit hallway toward a lab at the far end of the corridor, Grace seething behind him, the images of Lee tumbling one on top of the other.
When Grace had been tapped to work the pediatric side of heart transplants at the Center, she’d immediately come into conflict with a leggy young researcher, Lee Ann Bentley, doing postdoc work on kids.
There had been a whiff of scandal that Lee had falsified lab results before coming to the Center in an effort to prove the effectiveness of a new immune suppressor used on chimps in heart transplants. Two primates had died before anything conclusive could be determined, the bodies conveniently cremated. Lee had been exonerated of any wrongdoing, but it had left Grace feeling there was something creepy buried under all that perfection.
Lee was concentrating on xenografts and xenobiotics, genetically altering animal hearts so that one day, they’d be recognized as human by a transplant recipient. Grace was going another direction completely: chimerism. Mutual cell assimilation. Tricking the body into accepting a new, human heart as if it were its own.
She’d stumbled onto it by accident years before during her internship – that if she first transplanted bone marrow from the donor, the patient’s immune system could be tricked into accepting the donor heart almost as if it were its own. That meant lower doses of immune-suppressant drugs. The patient would still have to be on a rigorous drug program for the rest of his life, but at lower doses. Since the immune-suppressant drugs were so toxic, the lesser the dosage the better.
Later, that groundbreaking research was validated when transplant surgeons in Lyon, France, infused an Australian patient with donor marrow cells before performing a successful hand transplant, and then again when a woman in Paris, infused first with marrow cells from a donor, had a partial face transplant.
But when Grace was trying it, she was among a small group of surgeons and the only one at the Center. She’d been working there only a couple of weeks when she butted heads with Lee over a patient, a six-year-old boy who needed a heart transplant.
Lee talked the parents into putting a genetically altered pig’s heart into his small chest. Grace had passionately argued with her in private beforehand. It was too experimental. Risky. Safer options hadn’t been exhausted yet. Lee had shrugged and smiled, and the smile had been a cold thing.
‘It doesn’t really matter, does it? If he dies?’
She’d said it so quickly, matter-of-factly, Grace wasn’t certain she’d heard correctly. ‘It does to his parents,’ Grace said. ‘It does to me.’
In the end, the parents prevailed, signing off on the surgery. The boy died three days later. A week afterward, a human heart became available that would have worked, and Grace had never forgiven Lee for killing him.
The research side of the Center had always been Warren’s particular interest, and Grace had a growing suspicion that Warren was willing to sacrifice patients on the hospital side to be used as guinea pigs for research that was still experimental.
Or she could just be jealous that Lee was Warren’s favorite now, and had been for some time. Part of her still missed him.
A sterile tray the size Grace used for making cookies glowed in purple light as Warren pushed open the door to the lab. ‘Don’t turn on the light. She’s got cartilage cells that are light sensitive.’
A green light cast a glow over the counters. It was a narrow, windowless room and Grace felt slightly claustrophobic. Out of the gloom, Lee Bentley emerged, her hair gleaming.
‘Well, well. We meet again.’
Her hair had grown long since Grace had last seen her, and she wore it in a thick braid that shone the color of wheat and made her cheekbones look high. She had the talent for smiling with her teeth and never having the smile ease up her face. Her eyes were pale green, humorless and cold. Somewhere in Lee’s genetic code, marauders clambered in fur boots over a dung hill, swinging mastodon thigh bones and shattering the skulls of slumbering children. She was taller than Grace and just as slender and could have easily modeled. Whips and chains, probably.
‘Still killing chimps?’
‘Please,’ Warren said.
‘She’s a lab tech,’ Lee said. ‘She couldn’t find the jugular if she Googled it.’
‘Biologist,’ Grace said. ‘They call us forensic biologists.’
‘Both of you.’ Warren held up his hands in a classic gesture of peace. ‘Lee, I’m sorry.’
He was siding with her. How could he side with her?
‘I want Grace to see this.’ His voice held a pleading note.
Lee narrowed her eyes, debating something with herself, and then whirled and went down an aisle. She walked past what appeared to be an ear floating in gelatin and stopped before a large metal container the size of a Crock-Pot, connected by a snarl of tubes to the wall. It was a bioreactor, for growing things. A monitor attached to the tubes beeped in a steady pulse, and Grace saw at the far end of the counter a printer spitting out a stream of data.
The human ear meant Lee was focusing now on an entirely different direction in her research, and it made Grace queasy. ‘What am I looking at?’ she said irritably.
Lee slid her hand over the outside of the bioreactor, caressing it. ‘First, a few thoughts. There are almost three hundred kids – just in America – waiting at any given time for a heart. Often a heart that never comes.’
‘And the neck bone’s connected to the chin bone. I know the stats, I know how many die waiting. Can you leave the theatrics for your Nobel prize speech and cut to the chase?’
Lee lifted her chin and looked at Warren. ‘She’s impossible.’
Grace thought she saw him nod in agreement and she snapped, ‘Good. I’m gone.’
Warren clamped a hand gently on her shoulder and she bit off her sarcasm when she saw the pain and tenderness in his face.
‘Grace. Please. I need your help.’ His voice was low and urgent. He was turned away from Lee so the researcher couldn’t hear their conversation, and Grace felt again the connection with this aging man. ‘I need you to see this.’
She nodded and he took a breath, relieved. Grace moved primly down the aisle and stood next to Lee, noting that her perfume held a mix of citrus and musk, and something fainter.
Perhaps gunpowder. ‘What’s in there?’ Grace said.
Lee lifted the lid. Inside the vat floated a human heart.
It was the size of a tiny fist. It swayed gently in a thick, viscous liquid. It was an odd tan color and floated in a soupy nutrient sea the red color of Jell-O. Grace felt a wave of nausea. The last time she had seen a human heart was in Guatemala. She closed her eyes and steadied herself against the counter.
‘Grace? Are you okay?’ Warren said, alarmed.
‘I need to leave. Go into the hall.’
She patted her way blindly past them toward the door and burst through it into the hall, taking gulps of air and leaning against the wall. Her legs felt unsteady. She wiped her lip and swallowed hard, a faintly metallic acid taste in her throat. She heard the lab door close.
Warren joined her in the hall. ‘What can I do?’ he asked quietly.
She shook her head, took another gulp of air, opened her eyes. ‘Sorry. Just took me by surprise.’ The pale print on the hall wallpaper slowly stopped moving.
‘You want to sit?’
She shook her head and took a steadying breath. ‘I haven’t heard anything about that. A human heart. Extraordinary.’ Her legs had stopped trembling and she risked straightening up.
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