Daughter of Darkness (36 page)

    Jenny waited a few minutes, listened to the night right outside the tunnel exit, the slow-moving river, a nearby dog barking out of what sounded like boredom, and the wind in the scrub pines, the boughs bending with audible elegance. She was close enough to the end of the tunnel so that her claustrophobia wasn't so bad. She could think clearly now, without the frenzied need for escape.

    It would all be over soon, and for the first time, she felt an almost joyous optimism. Quinlan was behind the murders, and the police would be able to understand that now. He had manipulated her. His long reach had extended from the time that she'd lived at the compound till the present time. But that long reach had now been stretched to its limit.

    She listened to the falling darkness. Nothing untoward that she could hear. Maybe Gretchen really
had
kept her word to simply tell Quinlan that Jenny had already escaped, and to then lead Quinlan back to the hospital where, according to Gretchen's shabby fantasy, Quinlan would now be hers.

    Now. Time to go. She'd find out soon enough if Gretchen had kept her word. If she hadn't, Quinlan would be standing out there with his gun.

    She started to crawl to the edge of the tunnel. She didn't want to dangle from the edge the way Gretchen had, so she simply let herself drop head first to the ground. She had no trouble breaking her fall or getting to her feet.

    When she looked around at the long grasses and the deep woods, it was hard to imagine that she was this close to the city. Commune land really did have the feel of a bucolic retreat.

    The water would be cold. She had already steeled herself to that. She was a competent swimmer, no more, no less, and a reasonably good sport when it came to enduring unpleasanties. Jumping into the water this late at night, especially a river whose upstream tributaries were virtual toxic waste dumps, would put her endurance quotient to a severe test.

    Under the spanning stars, in a darkness sweet with the smell of burning autumn leaves and a saucy chill nip of true fall on the air, she stood on the river bank, slipping off her small black heels. She knew that her Levis would be heavy in the water, but she also knew that she would freeze without them. And she'd certainly need them when she swam to shore somewhere downstream.

    And that was when he said, "You look beautiful tonight, Jenny. But then you always do."

    Quinlan had always been good at sneaking up on her. He was especially good when Jenny was preoccupied with getting her shoes off, and getting ready for the water.

    He walked up and stood next to her now. "Smells good tonight. Can't smell all the pig shit from that hog farm."

    The hospital was downwind from a nearby hog farm. The farm stench could get overwhelming sometimes. The last courtroom go-round, the judge had ordered the farm to install new equipment that would cut down on the smell considerably. Quinlan's first reaction was that the farm had gotten to the judge-paid him off or blackmailed him-and here was the judge ordering them to put a band-aid on a cancer. One thing was for sure, the stench reminded the commune people of how glad they were to be vegetarians.

    He took her arm. "I could have my plane ready to go in two hours. We could be in Europe by tomorrow morning. They'd never find us."

    She watched him for a time, amazed as always at the depth of his feeling for her-and yet frightened that he knew so little of the real Jenny. He'd concocted this princess fantasy about her-with himself as the white knight-and no matter what she did to convince him otherwise, she persisted as perfect in his mind. Her third or fourth week at the commune, when she was so desperate to be saved-she'd seen that with Quinlan it was the other way round-
she
was saving
him.
She represented something to him, some unfathomable Woman symbol that he felt could redeem him somehow. And when he learned that she wouldn't sleep with him, learned that she would never be his… he decided to destroy her by framing her for two murders.

    He turned to take her in his arms.

    "You're all that matters to me," he said.

    "Is that why you wanted to send me to prison? Because I 'matter' to you so much?"

    "We can get away, Jenny," he said. The desperation she always inspired in him was in his voice once again. "Nobody will ever be able to find us. I have plenty of assets. We can have a wonderful life together."

    She slipped from his arms, then, and turned toward the river. He reached for her, grabbing the shoulder of her blouse, tearing the material, ripping downward, so that a large part of her blouse was torn all the way to the beltline. She just kept thinking about his inability to swim. He both hated and feared the water. She had to make it to the river…

    And then, from behind him, a voice said, "Stay right there."

    Gretchen stood behind Quinlan, a .45,
his
.45, pointed directly at the back of his head.

    "I want her to go," Gretchen said.

    "What the hell're you doing here? I told you to go back to the commune."

    "You don't really think that I believed you, did you?" Gretchen said. "That you just wanted to go for a walk by yourself? I knew you were coming back here." She looked at Jenny. "For the first time, I believe you, Jenny. That you don't want him for yourself. I see how it is now. How it
really
is." She waggled her weapon in a northerly direction. "There's a path over there. Take it and in about half a mile you'll see a highway leading to the city." She smiled. "Save you from swimming."

    "Thanks, Gretchen."

    Gretchen hit Quinlan on the side of the head with surprising force, enough force to drop the man to his knees. There in the dark, Quinlan held both sides of his head and moaned. The blow had been severe.

    "Now, you're going to listen to me," Gretchen said. "And do just what I tell you. You understand me?"

    And with that, she clubbed him again. He sank a little lower, shoulders dropping, knees sinking into the soft earth.

    The whole thing was comic, really, a little girl scolding her bad brother-or her bad dog.

    "And even if I have to get you saltpeter," Gretchen said, "you're going to give up having sex with anybody but me. I'm the only one who cares about you, and you can't see that. But you will." She stood over him. He was bent over, his arms covering his head.

    She slammed the gun against his skull for the third time. He cried out and then moaned. And then he said, "You don't understand what's going on here. If you let her go, you'll destroy everything."

    "You just want to keep her here for yourself," Gretchen said. "I'm trying to help you, can't you see that? Out of sight, out of mind. Now you start behaving yourself." She was using her bad-doggie tone. To her, Quinlan was as much as fantasy as Jenny was to Quinlan.

    Gretchen looked up and saw Jenny still there. Jenny had been hoping she'd be able to get the gun from Gretchen and bring Quinlan in herself. But she could see that Gretchen was in control of things here. "Go on, Jenny. Get out of here."

    Jenny took a final look at both of them, and then started walking quickly away.

    Not long after, as she crested a hill, she got her first glimpse of a two-lane blacktop that stretched toward the city.

    She needed to get to a phone. Fast.

    

    

    The Sigma Corporation was housed in a new two-story glass-and-rusted-steel building that looked almost gauche against its backdrop of forest and an artificial lake. Sodium vapor lights made the imposition of man upon nature even more ominous. Moonlight was much prettier than mauve electrical light. There was only one car in the small parking lot. No lights shone in any of the windows on the front or southern side of the building. Apparently Sigma lacked the Boomer spirit of eighteen-hour workdays a la Bill Gates. Probably all at home waxing and shining their family vans and Saabs.

    He drove around the entire building. He still didn't see any lights. Surely, there was a security man in there. Most likely, he had a room where he stayed when he wasn't making his rounds. There was a good chance the room was windowless-like a large storage closet-and the light wouldn't show externally. There would also be a state-of-the-art security system in place. Sigma was all but impenetrable. He needed to get in there. He needed some evidence to link Sigma and Jenny together. He stood even less of a chance sneaking into the hospital grounds. He had to get his evidence here.

    Then he got an idea. Shrinks always had answering services that could beep them in case of an emergency. Priscilla Bowman would be no different.

    He used his cell phone to reach information and get Bowman's number. The answering service woman took his name and noted that this was an emergency and then took his number. She said, "May I tell her what this is about?"

    "Just say it involves Sigma. She'll know what I mean."

    "Sigma? S-i-g-m-a?"

    "Right. And thank you."

    Sigma sat on unspoiled land near Oak Park. A lot of aggressive new corporations were building out here. While he waited to hear from Bowman, he rolled down his window, closed his eyes, and took in the smells of autumn. He thought of his wife and daughter playing in piles of leaves, gold and russet and yellow leaves spraying up into the air like water in a pool. And the Saturday afternoon Northwestern games, their alma mater. And the Sunday afternoon drives over into Wisconsin to see the miles and miles of autumn foliage, God's own theme park.

    He was drifting pleasantly on memories when the cell phone buzzed like an angry insect. He picked up, punched in.

    "I wish you wouldn't use my service for something as inane as this," Priscilla Bowman snapped.

    "How do you know it's inane? You don't even know what it is yet."

    "Listen, Coffey. You've made the same mistake any number of other men have-they've fallen desperately in love with the beautiful, virginal Jenny Stafford. That's how she appears on the outside, anyway. But inside, she's not very beautiful and she's anything but virginal. She's sociopathic, Coffey. Totally. And she's killed at least two people that we know of. I'm sure she's killed even more. That's her real nature we're talking about. It's not something that I instilled in her-or anybody else, for that matter. She's like the woman in the east who has had this ongoing love affair with her fourteen-year-old student. You look at her and she looks like an angel. So much so that nobody wants to attach the word 'pedophile' to her. But that's what she is. Nothing more, nothing less. A pedophile. If she wasn't beautiful and elegant and the daughter of privilege, she would have been carted off to prison and nobody would have paid any attention to her. How could somebody with a face like that be a pedophile? Well, it happens, and it happens more frequently than we want to admit."

    "That's a very nice speech."

    She laughed. "I appreciate a good audience."

    "But it's all bullshit. At least the part about Jenny."

    "You're doing exactly what I said you were, Coffey. You're saying that nobody that seemingly sweet could possibly be a killer."

    "I'm in a hurry, Priscilla. So I'm going to say this simply. I'm out at Sigma Corporation. I need you to come out here and help me find proof of what you and your friend Quinlan have been doing to Jenny. There's still time to help yourself with the DA, Priscilla. But once I start talking to the cops, they won't be willing to cut any deals with you. They'll go after both of you."

    There was a long silence. "I don't think you can prove anything."

    "You know better than that. You know it's just a matter of time now."

    Another silence. "How much do you know?"

    "Not all I need to know. But one way or another, I'll find out. It's inevitable at this point."

    "It would take me a while to get there."

    "Leave now."

    "I'll have to think about it, I guess."

    "No, you won't." Then, "Leave now. Right now, Priscilla."

    He broke the connection.

    

    

    She wasn't going to come out here, of course. The pauses in her conversation were her trying to figure out how to handle this matter.

    And she handled it just the way he'd thought she would.

    He sat in his car and put together the scenario. Guard getting her phone call. Guard getting his shotgun. Guard taking a shadowy window spot to locate Coffey's car in the lot. Guard going out the opposite end of the building. Guard circling around through the woods, Coffey's car conveniently parked right up next to the line of forest. Guard in a crouched position sneaking up on Coffey's car and-

    "Get out of the car." Guard standing on the other side of the passenger window.

    Guard was white. And young. And big. And military-sharp in his dark blue uniform with the snappy zipper jacket and the wine-red beretlike headware. If they ever did another
Star Trek
spin-off, this guy was ready. On beret and jacket arms was sewn the distinctive Sigma logo. This was not a rent-a-cop. This was a full-time employee of Sigma. Which meant that he would probably do just about anything Priscilla Bowman told him to.

    "One more time, pal, get out of the car."

    He was a hard-ass, a real one, this lad. He looked as if he would take a genuine spiritual pleasure in carrying out Priscilla Bowman's orders.

    Coffey had the small spray can ready in the palm of his right hand. It had been ready since he'd called Priscilla. He would have to be very, very quick. Guard was looking forward to World War III.

    Coffey opened the door. The night air felt good, even if it was tainted by the coloring of the sodium vapor light.