Mortal Fear (46 page)

I know how you feel. But I need everything you have. Right now.

Glancing back at Drewe, I memorize the fax number Baxter reads off. If the stuff he told me is true, you might have enough to ID him just from the printouts.

I hope so. One other thing, Cole.

What?

Wheres Miles Turner?

I sigh angrily. I dont know and Im tired of being asked.

Dont make it worse on yourself. You hid him out. You aided and abetted.

Youre right. I aided and abetted a friend who has nothing to do with these murders. He was trying to solve the goddamn things for you, and he still may do it.

What does that mean? Whats he doing?

Whatever it is, its over my head.

Is he the one who came up with the tissue donor network angle?

Actually that was my wife,
I think, looking at Drewe bundled under the covers. But Im not about to put her on the FBIs agenda. Yes, I say evenly. Anything else?

Not for now. Just fax that stuff through.

Youll get it. What about EROS? You going to leave it shut down?

Were discussing that right now.

Im out of it now, Mr. Baxter. Just remember that.

As lightly as I can, I get up from the bed and go to my office. Its still a wreck. I remove the Brahma printouts from the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet, where Id hidden them in case Drewe broke her own rule and
entered the office. Walking to the fax machine, I notice that I forgot to edit out the details of Erins liaison with her sisters husband. Baxter may not recognize the truth behind that story, but eventually someone in the Unit will put it together, even without Lenzs help. With a black magic marker, I blot out the lines that contain my personal revelations, then gather up the mess and begin loading pages into the fax machine.

It takes a while to feed them all through, long enough to develop a cramp in my back from bending over the machine. When Im done, I realize I promised to fax copies to Miles as well. I stretch my back and repeat the process. As the last group of pages starts to go through, my office telephone rings. Normally Id let the machine get it, but its late enough now that the possible callers are pretty limited.

It me, says Miles when I pick up the cordless.

You safe?

Going with the flow.

Whats up?

The Trojan Horse didnt work. He says this as though his best friend just died.

Design flaw?

Hell no. A timing thing.

What do you mean?

Cant tell you.

Im hanging up now.

Wait a minute

Cut the bullshit, then.

Your phone could be tapped, man.

I no longer care. The FBI missed Brahma, by the way. They arrested the wrong guy.

Miles hesitates. Im aware.

I say nothing.

You never faxed me the Brahma stuff, he says.

I just put it through to EROS. Now tell me about the Trojan Horse.

After a long silence, he begins to speak in the Mister Rogers tone he uses to explain technical matters to people like me. The code I wrote is hidden in the compressed
data of Erins JPEG photo, right? When Brahma downloaded the JPEG to his computer, he pulled the horse into his city. When he tried to view it, Erins photo went up onto the screen just fine. But right before it did, my program slipped away and made a nest in another part of his computer. Once every twenty-four hoursat one-thirty a.m.that program will wake up and use Brahmas EROS interface to dial my EROS mailbox. Once the connection is made, itll download a copy of whatever it finds on Brahmas hard drive. And Id be very surprised if his name wasnt in there somewhere.

I feel a sudden rush of hope. Thats actually possible?

Unless Brahma got suspicious of the single black line in the image and detected the hidden code, its going to happen. The only question is how soon.

How obvious is this black line?

Its practically invisible. I fixed it so its hidden by the dark stone at the bottom of the photo.

Im marching around the office with the cordless. Youre a genius, man! Youre going to get him!

Well see, Miles says with uncharacteristic modesty.

How did you come up with one-thirty a.m.?

Analyzed Brahmas recent traffic patterns. That was one of his least active times.

Does his computer have to be on for this to work?

Yes.

If hes at his computer when it happens, will he see it?

No. If theres another program running, the Trojan Horse wont activate.

But if his computers off, it cant activate?

Right. But I figure he leaves all his computers on, just like me and anybody else who knows anything about computers. Unless its a notebook.

So tonight he was working at his computer at one-thirty?

Bet on it.

Damn. Youre going to crack this thing. Youre going to I stop in the center of the room, staring at the EROS computer screen.

Harper?

Ive got e-mail. EROS mail.

Who from?

I walk to the computer and click the mouse on the e-mail icon. Its Brahma. Hes using Maxwell. I thought EROS was shut down.

Whats the time stamp on the message?

Thirty minutes ago.

Damn!

How can he be in the system if its shut down?

Shut down doesnt mean switched off. It just means the servers are closed to subscribers. Theyre still running.

So hes in the system?

He obviously got an e-mail message through. Ill start checking. What does the message say?

I read it aloud into the phone: Erin, I know you told me not to send e-mail, but I had to. I cannot express what I feel at this moment. I received the photograph, and it was astounding. Everything you said was true. I stored the image in a program that allows me to view it from any angle, to modify it as I wish, even create a moving montage. Yet every modification, every turn or inversion, is a desecration of the original. I can only imagine what it must be to behold you in three dimensions. Reflect on all I told you. Imagine what I withheld. Be assured that I am your deliverance. Your Dark Prince.

Thats it! Miles yells. Weve got him going and coming, and he has no idea.

Maybe, I allow, strangely sobered by Brahmas reappearance in my life. What about the master client list? Did Jan remember dating anybody who seemed suspicious?

Shes been out with a couple of doctors, but theyre not likely candidates. Shes hired private investigators to check them out, though. How are you going to answer Brahmas message?

Im not.

He sighs unhappily. Any typos in the message?

No. Its pretty short, though. Why do you keep asking me that?

If hes using voice-rec, hes back at his home base. And I think thats New York.

Why?

The false airplane registration, for one thing. The way that was set up.

How do you know about that?

He ignores the question. Brahma had to know about this anesthesiologist to pick his plane for a front. Other things point to New York, though. I also happen to like the idea. Know what I mean?

I make an affirmative noise, not wanting to state the obvious. If Miles is glad Brahmas home base is New York, its not because innocent women are unlikely to die in the next couple of days but because Miles has managed to get back there himself. And if his Trojan Horse works as planned tomorrow night, he can be there for the endgame. I am about to ring off when he speaks again, unable to resist letting me know how deeply this hunt has worked itself into his blood.

You know what English fox hunters used to say, dont you?

Enlighten me.

In at the death.

I grunt neutrally. Just remember something. Brahmas no fox.

He laughs. And Im no Englishman. Ciao.

After putting down the phone, I save Brahmas message, then sit down on the bed. Its a mistake. In seconds I am lying on my back, half conscious and fading fast. As sleep washes over me, I see red-coated men riding horses through misty fields of dying cotton, their horses legs thrashing and crackling through the dried brown stalks. Far out in front dogs howl madly as the horses close the gap and then gather in a ring around a tiny hole in a grass-covered hill. Someone lights a bundle of straw, then sets it by the hole while the dogs guard the back entrance to the den. The men on horses swig Scotch and congratulate each other, saying,
In at the death, old man
.
In at the death
. Then someone says theyve made a mistake, the den is empty, and the dogs tear off across the fields again and I sit there on my horse like the others, drinking Scotch with the sun on my back, watching a shadow grow longer and broader on the ground in front of us. I want to turn around to see what is making that shadow, but I cant
seem to move. I can hear though. And what I hear is a wild black animal voice making human sounds for the first time, mangling the simple syllables, trying again and again until they become distinct and form the sound their maker intended.

Laughter.

Cotton picking began this morning. Not the full harvest, but scattered bands of men and machines controlled by farmers who got fed up with staring at stunted cotton that would grow no more before the drought finally broke and soaking rain flooded the scorched fields and a money-eating rot set in. Men who felt like fools for gambling against God by putting out growth regulators at the wrong times and who finally just said fuck it and called their hands and fired up the four-row pickers to try to salvage what they could.

From my front porch I watch gunmetal clouds gathering over my neighbors fields. They hover with mocking heaviness, unmoved by wind or by the drone of the mechanical pickers. Drewe left early this morning for her clinic in Yazoo City. Ive passed most of the day walking from room to room, avoiding my office. No one has called, few cars have passed on the road, and despite the slow dusty progress of the pickers, the whole world seems to be waiting.

The ring of my office phone is almost a welcome sound. I trot through the front door and veer left, expecting Daniel Baxters voice from the machine, or Miless, but I hear neither. Its Drewe, and she sounds shaken.

Im here! I say, picking up.

Harper, I need you to drive to Jackson right now.

What? Whats wrong?

Im afraid Erin might hurt herself.

What?
She threatened to kill herself?

No, she told me everything was fine.

Then what?

Everything is
not
fine. We know that. But she told me shed found a way to solve all her problems. She said it might be painful for everyone for a while, but in the end it would be for the best.

I feel like my body temperature is plummeting.

I want you to go right now.

Wouldnt she rather see you? I ask.

She doesnt want me there. Id go anyway, but Ive got a difficult delivery on my hands. It could be a while.

Drewe, Im the last person Erin wants butting into her problems. She doesnt even like me.

Harper, please. Erin respects you more than any man she knows.

Youve got to be kidding.

Then why did she tell me that? Now get your butt over to Jackson and talk her out of doing anything stupid. Get her out of there if you have to.

And take her where?

Bring her to our house. Do whatever you have to do.

And if she wont come?

Figure something out.
Please
get going.

Im on my way.

Call me if it gets crazy, and Ill find someone to handle this delivery.

If it gets crazy?
I set down the phone and glance around the office for my keys. This situation is long past crazy, and I have a feeling its going to get worse.

Erin and Patrick live in the Belhaven district of Jackson. Most people at their income level long ago moved out to the enclaves of Ridgeland and Madison, but Patrick took advantage of white flight to trade up to palatial quarters for a bourgeois price. I managed to make the whole hour-and-twenty-minute drive from Rain without thinking. I popped in Joni Mitchells
Hejira
and turned it up to the pain threshold, following Jaco Pastoriuss fretless bass as it wound through the spaces between Larry Carltons guitar and the soaring vocal. But now Im here.

The front door of the house has one of those burled finishes youd expect to find at a Victorian mens club. I hammer the big brass knocker and wait, listening to the
blows reverberate over the slate and hardwood floors inside. At least a minute passes before I hear heels clacking. Theres a rustle at the curtained windows to one side of the door, then stillness again.

I try the handle, then push open the door.

Erin stands just inside, looking at me with preternatural calm. Her facial bruises are yellow at the edges, setting them off from the tanned skin that might otherwise have masked the damage. The orbit of her left eye is a continuous contusion, like an indigo map of an island. Flecks of blood dot the corner of the eye itself. A closed fist delivered that blow.

Shes wearing a linen sundress, the color of lilac. It lies as smoothly against her upper body as a silk camisole, billows slightly at her waist. Another bruise marks her left breast where it disappears into the dress. Her hair is tied up, with a dark spray falling around the back of her neck. She wears no shoes, earrings, or wristwatch. No wedding ring.

Come in, she says, turning away and walking through the entrance hall. Were in the TV room.

Is Patrick here?

The back of her head turns once from side to side.

As she moves deeper into the house, I fear that Drewe may be right about the danger here. The air conditioner is not running, which on this day is evidence enough of mental instability. Ahead of me, Erin walks with the grace she always possessed, yet her fluidity seems oddly exaggerated. The dimness and heat increase with each step I take. I have a disturbing vision of myself following an Egyptian girl into a tomb.

What do I sense here?

Resolve. Some decision has been taken. A choice has been made in cold deliberation, and the weight of it is tangible. As Erin steps out of the dark hallway and into a blue glow, fear suffuses me. Not for myself, but for what I might find at the end of this brief journey.
Where is Holly?
screams my brain. I quicken my steps, hurrying after Erin, hoping to prevent any madness that might remain unconsummated.

Then I see Holly. Shes propped on thick pillows in
front of Patricks treasured fifty-two-inch television. Her back is to me, and she doesnt seem to be moving. I dont see Erin at first; then my eyes pick her out of the shadows, seated in a cushioned chair against the wall to my left, her long bare legs stretched across an ottoman. I move quickly to Holly and lean over her. Her eyes are barely open. I stare with frantic intensity at the little belly beneath the Precious Cargo T-shirt, watching for the rise and fall of respiration.

She is breathing. With relief cascading through me, I swoop her up from the floor as though she were weightless.

Youre going to wake her up, Erin says.

I lay Hollys head on my left shoulder and begin rocking her gently as I walk around the room.

Put her down, Erin insists. Its nap time. Shell be comatose by the time Ursula the Sea Witch shows up.

I turn toward the TV and see the comforting yellow splash that is Flounder, then the orange hair of Ariel, the Little Mermaid. Whats going on, Erin?

What do you mean?

Turn on the lights.

Theyll wake up Holly.

I dont care.

Youre not her mother.

I

Youre not that either, she snaps. Except in the genetic sense. Youre the sperm donor. What are you doing here anyway?

Drewe called me. Shes worried about you.

Erin gets to her feet and moves toward me. Give her to me. Shes already asleep.

First tell me nothing crazy is going on here. That Hollys okay.

What? Her voice drops to a threatening whisper.
Yougivememychild.
This
instant
!

Reluctantly, I release the little body that is flesh of my flesh yet resides under another mans roof, under another mans protection. Erin leaves the room with her.

When she returns, she is alone. She clicks on the overhead light, stretches out on the chair and ottoman, and
studies me as if I am some nonhuman creature of trifling interest.

Now, she says. What are you doing here?

I grope for words that will not sound pompous, but find none. Talk about a fools errand. Content to let me suffer in silence, Erin says nothing. Who are we? I wonder. Two people who three years ago thrashed around a bed in Chicago for three days and somehow produced the beautiful child who now stands unknowing in the eye of a gathering emotional hurricane?

One thing is certain: whatever we shared is finally gone. A few nights ago, when Erin sat down on my bed and began crying, I felt a response, a pulling toward her. Even through her despair, I sensed desire, a possibility of consummation, however mad it would have been. But today there is nothing. If a landscape of her emotions could somehow be superimposed upon this room, we would be sitting in a blasted gray ruin, devoid of vegetation and fast running out of water.

Its probably good that youre here, she says finally. Itll make things simpler.

How?

Patrick and I have been having some discussions.

Violent ones.

Thats completely irrelevant and all my fault.

I doubt that.

Dont.

Has my name come up during these... discussions?

A faint smile touches her lips. God, youre so predictable. All youre worried about is yourself. Or maybe Drewes precious illusions being shattered. Right? Thats all anybody ever worries about.

Im worried about you too. And Holly.

Spare me, okay? Youre here because Drewe told you to come, and you couldnt get out of it without telling her the truth about us. Right?

She doesnt wait for verification. Let me put your mind at rest. Your worst fear is right on target. The problems between Patrick and me are about Hollys father, nothing else.

Im not sure what is happening to my face, but it must
be funny in an awful sort of way, because Erin is laughing at me. Youd better sit down, she advises.

I back gingerly to a sofa and drop onto it.

Its all going to come out, she says in a matter-of-fact voice.

I peer across the shadowed room at her face, a study in self-possession. Why is that?

Because it has to. We were stupid to ever think it wouldnt. She makes a steeple of her long fingers and studies me over it. Youre terrified that Drewe cant take the truth, arent you?

You think she can?

Erin suddenly begins speaking in Drewes voice, quoting lines Im sure Drewe has never spoken. Erin screwed every good-looking guy in school, but dear sweet Harper was above it. Thats what she thinks, isnt it?

She knows Im not above that.

Oh, you diddled some cheerleaders. But thats not the same, is it? After all, Princess Drewe wasnt putting out, was she? But to come to me, thats another thing.

I didnt come to you, Erin. You came to me. And it was ten years after high school.

In her eyes thats
worse,
stupid. You werent a horny little seventeen-year-old then. You were supposed to be committed to her. You were supposed to have judgment.

I think Drewe may know us better than we think. I doubt the attraction between us was as secret as we always thought. I think maybe shes knows were not above it, but she hopes we wouldnt do it.

But we did, didnt we?

I say nothing.

She shakes her head. You still think about it, dont you?

What? Chicago?

I know you, Harper. You tell yourself youd sell your soul never to have done it. You lie awake at night, sweating, promising the dark that if only something would make it all unhappen, youd never do anything like that again. And five minutes after that youre standing in the bathroom making yourself come, thinking about how
it felt to be inside me. How it felt to have supermodel Erin sucking your precious weenie.

Erin

I gape as she hikes the lilac sundress up to her hips with a fierce flourish. Well? There it is. Thats what its all about for you, isnt it?

She is wearing sky-blue panties, but they are sheer, and the black tangle beneath them is obvious. In spite of everything, my eyes lock there with three million years of evolutionary focus. Then the lilac veil falls and she is up on her feet with her hands in the air.

Thats all men ever think about with me! she cries, turning away in anger. Because Im not the girl you marry, am I? My past is just too much. Except for someone like Patrick. Sweet, hardworking, rich, impotent Patrick.

My mouth falls open again.

Oh, were way past spats in the kitchen, she says, turning back. When his obsession hit critical mass, Patricks plumbing stopped functioning. In the last two months weve made love twice. If you could call it that. Both times he came home drunk at midnight, climbed on top of me, and started flailing away before I could even wake up. If I hadnt known what was making him crazy, I would have hit him in the head with the telephone. But you know what I did? I told him I loved him and begged for more. And as soon as I did that, it was over. He couldnt finish. He doesnt have meanness like that in him. She leans back and touches her bruised eye, and I realize she is on the verge of tears. And you know what?

What?

He deserves better than me.

Thats not true, Erin.

Better than what Ive been giving him, then. I was a fool to make him promise never to ask who the father was. She laughs. I actually thought he was Dr. Pretorius.

Shes lost me. Whos that? Somebody from New York?

No, stupid. Dr. Pretorius was Cary Grant.

What?

Its a movie. I thought you knew every movie ever made. Cary Grant plays this wonderful doctor who marries a woman whos pregnant by another man. And it all works out.