Reflex (18 page)

Her spare glasses were in the top drawer of her side table, though finding them was a matter of groping and muttered swearing. Finally, wearing them, the room went from a dark blur of shadows to a sharply delineated network of dimly lit outlines. She took the comforter from the bed and wrapped it around her, bath robe and all, then sat down on the floor, propped against the walls in the corner of her bedroom.

Our bedroom.

Our besieged bedroom.

She tried to close her eyes momentarily, just to calm her breathing and the thudding of her heart, but the slightest distant creak in the building caused her to start and stare frantically at the balcony and bedroom doors.

How did they know?

Either they
had
followed her to the hotel, despite the assurances of Curtis and escort, or Curtis had reported back and the leak had occurred above him. The timing would work for either scenario. She didn't want to think that Curtis, himself, was the leak, but her current level of paranoia was such that she couldn't discount the possibility.

I've got to get out of here.

She went to her dresser and pulled whole stacks of underwear, socks, pants, and shirts. She found Davy's hard-sided suitcase in the hall closet and dumped the clothes in, adding shoes, toiletries, and Davy's old leather jacket.

I don't have my keys, I don't have any money.

She looked at the door to the apartment.
And I'm not going out
that
way.

She took a firm grip on the suitcase handle and lifted it.

What do I do now? Raise my fist and say, "to the Aerie"? Might as well say, "to the Batmobile!"

She tried to imagine the sheepskin-strewn rock floor of the cliff dwelling, its dark shadowing corners, and knotty pine furniture with legs cut to odd lengths on the uneven floor. She
willed
her self to be there, gritting her teeth as if the clenching of her jaw muscles would push her through space and time.

She didn't move.

Dammit! What does a girl have to do—throw herself off the balcony?
She turned angrily, and the suitcase knocked loudly into an end table.

She twisted, looking back toward the door, her heart thudding.
Did they hear—

She was standing on cold stone, in the dark interior of the Aerie.

This is ridiculous.

She made tea.

There was just enough water for that and no more, and it was a horrid waste of water when one is in the middle of a mountainous desert. Even the local oasis was out of her reach—the rappelling rope was back in the condo.

But tea is comforting. Tea is soothing.

Of course I don't seem to be able to jump unless I'm scared to death, so maybe soothing isn't the way I should be going.

It wasn't quite true. She remembered the time, in the National Gallery, that she'd jumped to eavesdrop on the Monk—what had Anders called him? Padgett. That time she hadn't been afraid for her life.

She wandered aimlessly while the kettle warmed on the propane burner.

But I wasn't thinking about
jumping
either. That's probably the ticket.
It was a regular defense among her clients—intellectualizing. They'd examine a problem with all the sharp focus of intelligent minds, dissecting and analyzing everything—anything to avoid an actual
feeling.
Well, feelings often hurt, didn't they?

So maybe this is a
feeling
thing.

She felt pretty sure that if she jumped off the ledge outside with a destination in mind—someplace safe—that she'd actually jump.

She was also terrified at the thought of trying that. What if she didn't jump? Must she risk her life every time?

The teakettle began to whistle at the far end of the dwelling and she turned to walk back to it—then stopped herself, well short.

You've got to solve this. Maybe it's not so dramatic as flinching away from death. Maybe it's as simple as wanting to overhear someone far away or
—She licked her lips and looked at the burner. She'd have to do something quickly or the very last water would boil away.

Maybe it's as simple as wanting a cup of tea.

She didn't try to jump. Instead, she thought about the sound the tea kettle made—its piercing whistle, the frantic vibrations of thousands of bubbles shaking the container, making it rattle slightly on the burner. She thought about the feel of vapor, the sense of air heavy with moisture, the rich, almost tropical dampness when you stood near a boiling kettle. She thought about the smell, the promising fragrance of a dry black pekoe tea bag as you opened the paper envelope, the wetter, heavier scent when the boiling water floods the cup and soaks the tea.

And she was there, standing in front of the burner, twenty feet crossed in the beat of a single heart valve. The hairs rose on the back of her neck and she turned off the burner.
There's nothing like a good cup of tea.

She seemed to have got the hang of it.

For the condo in Stillwater it was the vanity in the master bathroom: a potpourri of smells ranging from perfume to toothpaste to baby powder; the feel of broad Mexican tile on bare, often wet, feet; the rasp of a toothbrush across lips, gum, and incisor.

For the Aerie there was the smell of stone, of old piñon wood smoke, the feel of thick-napped sheepskin wool pressing up between toes, and a sense of solidity that the floor in her second floor condo did not have.

There was a visual element as well, but it really took more than just picturing a place. She had to use other senses, to imagine herself already at her destination, already engaged with the environment.

And imagining makes it so.

She made three quick trips to fill the ceramic cistern, running the water cold from the bath tap and hoping the condo wasn't bugged for sound.

It was getting easier now that she'd done the same trip a few times. The scents, the textures, the colors weren't being recalled piecemeal. Now it was a flicker of sensory memories that abruptly solidified into the real thing.

She refilled the kettle. She hadn't made that cup of tea yet and she really felt she deserved an entire pot.

It was only fifty-five minutes after she'd fled the D.C. hotel bathtub. She thought about Anders and the NSA and the FBI.

There was a leak. Either there was a mole or a bug.
How else did they find her there? She couldn't believe it was a random break-in.

It can't be Anders—he's had all the opportunity in the world to snatch me.
But that was as far as she could be sure.

He'll be worried sick.

She wrapped her arms around herself. The damn kettle was taking forever to boil and the Aerie was cold. She built a fire in the wood stove, bone-dry pine needles, resinous pine cones, split piñon kindling, and a twisted piñon log atop all. One match and it took easily, bright yellow flames and crackling ignitions of resin. The heat was palpable and she crouched down before it, opening Davy's robe to let it fall on her bare skin until the tea kettle whistled again.

She jumped back to the kettle. It was less than five long steps away from the fireplace, but she wanted control of this thing and felt practice would bring it.

She set the teapot, warmed, emptied, refilled, and now brewing, near the wood stove. There was no milk in the place. The last time she'd been stuck here, when Davy had initially disappeared, she'd made do with creamer. That wasn't necessary, now, if she could get this thing under control. There wasn't any milk in the condo, either. She'd given the kitchen spoilables to a neighbor before flying to D.C.

Where could she buy milk? What places did she know so intimately that she could jump there? She looked down at the terry cloth robe she was wearing. She could think of a few places but none where she would be comfortable in a bathrobe.
Except Mom's kitchen. There's probably milk there.
But her mother had heart trouble. Seeing Millie suddenly appear would probably kill her.

Millie dressed in a warm, long-sleeved dress from the hard-sided suitcase and slipped her feet into a pair of flats.

Money was no problem. She went to Davy's chest. Davy Jones's Locker, she'd called it. It was an antique wooden steamer trunk at the foot of their bed, draped with a spare comforter. The ancient lock had rusted open long before Davy ever bought it. She pushed the comforter aside and lifted the lid. It was half-full, mostly hundred dollar bills, but there was a small tray of "spending money"—bundles of twenties and tens—on top.

She didn't want to think about it. Last time they'd seriously checked, there was over two million dollars in the chest but the level looked higher now. She took a rubber band off of a bundle of ten-dollar bills and used it to pull her tangled, still damp hair back into a ponytail. As an afterthought, she took one of the tens and closed the trunk again.

She needed to get the milk before the tea over-steeped.

There was one place, on the corner of Houston and Sullivan streets in Greenwich Village that she knew intimately. Five of their favorite restaurants were in that area and Davy always jumped to the shadowed basement steps of St. Anthony's of Padua Catholic Church. She thought about it, the dampness of the old limestone, the nearly constant smell of urine—dark doorways had that danger in New York—with the eclectic mix of exhaust fumes, cooking, tree blossoms, and garbage that was also New York.

Her ears popped and she jerked in surprise as she found herself on the steps, forgetting momentarily the purpose of her recollection. It was darker than she expected, quite damp, and near freezing. The traffic on Houston was still heavy, but remote, distanced by wet fog.

Directly across the street was a small corner store, more of a stand, really, selling a mix of candy, news, lottery, and drinks. She paid for and received two quart cartons of whole milk. When she turned around again, she looked up through the swirling fog at the Church and the floodlit statue of Saint Anthony.

A memory of childhood came to her, a Catholic friend's rhyme. She thought of Davy and said it aloud. "Saint Antony, Saint Antony, please come around. Something is lost and needs to be found."

The clerk, one of the local, olive-skinned, Italian-Americans, said, "Ya gotta say it on Tuesdays. That's his day. It might work but ya gotta bettah chance on Tuesday."

She turned back to him and nodded solemnly. "I'll remember that."

He shrugged as if embarrassed.

She went back across the street to go down the stairs, but the clerk was still watching her so she headed down the street, instead, past the meat market before ducking into the entrance of an apartment building nestled between the steel-grated fronts of a balloon shop and a drop-off laundry.

She jumped from there, back to the Aerie.

The warm tea and the fire were very good after the cold air. She polished her glasses on the hem of her dress and thought about the events of the night.

How do I get in touch with Anders?

The bug, her surest way, was in the hotel room, maybe taken by whoever entered. Her cell phone was also there and he could hardly call her that way if she didn't have it. On the other hand, the bug, with its GPS locator, would betray her position and, therefore, her newfound ability. And she was pretty sure the cell phone would be useless in the Aerie.

But she still wanted Anders to know she was all right.

When the tea had been consumed and the resulting bladder pressure dealt with, she put on Davy's old leather jacket and tried to decide how to contact Anders without putting her at risk.

Two risks.

First, there was the issue of whoever wanted to kidnap her, probably as a means to control Davy. This was a big risk, but oddly enough, not the one that scared her the most.

If they find out I can jump, I'm as likely to be sought by the NSA as whoever grabbed Davy.
She would be a backup "intelligence asset." They might even stop looking for Davy if they knew they could preserve this "capability."

Where to jump?

Again it was a matter of intimate acquaintance with a place. She thought she could probably return to the hotel room, but that would bother her.

The drugstore.
When she'd bought the underwear, the deodorant, the toothpaste at the drugstore next to the hotel, she'd been struck by the smells from the cosmetic department. She'd blinked in the bright fluorescent lighting. There'd been a large rubber-backed rug at the doorway, for the wiping of feet. That's when the smells had hit her.

And she was there. She heard someone gasp and blinked in the bright fluorescent lighting.

It was the cashier who'd gasped. "I didn't hear the door chime," she said, holding a hand to her chest. "So when I looked up and you were standing there—I mean, it almost looked like—" She broke off. "Surprised me."

"Sorry," said Millie.

Davy had talked about this phenomenon. "When people know a thing is impossible, they
know
it. They can be looking directly at you when you appear out of thin air and they'll come up with a
logical
explanation before you can even open your mouth."

She glanced behind her. There were several cars in the parking lot of the hotel that hadn't been there before—large SUVs and one police car with a broad green stripe on its side framing the letters "Alexandria Police" across both doors. She moved further into the store.

"What's happening next door?"

The clerk's eyes widened and she said, "An FBI agent came in and asked me if I'd seen anything suspicious next door, but he wouldn't say what had happened!"

"My goodness." She smiled and asked, "Where's the shampoo?"

"Aisle ten, dear."

"Thank you." Millie turned, trying to be casual about it. She went back and stared blankly at the shampoo bottles, then picked her usual brand.

She paid for it with the change from her milk purchase, then walked out the door, across the parking lot, and into the hotel lobby.

"There she is!" the clerk said, stabbing his finger toward her. The two FBI agents—they wore the windbreakers with the large letters across the back—swiveled their heads around.