Stirred (5 page)

Huh. Surrender.

Stupid, stupid pigs.

He glanced back at the only bargaining chip he had. Revise that:
had
had. The FBI agent was still cuffed to the metal folding chair, but he looked like a marshmallow left smoldering over the campfire too long. Pitch black. A tar baby. Still smoking. What a sad thing. The last person he’d ever have the pleasure of burning.

“Christopher Rogers…” That pig-negotiator again. “We just want to talk to you.”

Hmm.

Or maybe not.

There was still a half-can of gasoline remaining.

A book of matches.

Sizzle sat down on the oil-stained concrete. Truth be told, he’d never considered this. Probably because of the unimaginable pain involved, but there were things worse than pain. Like being locked up away from what you loved most.

He opened the gas can, poured it over his head, those beautiful fumes encompassing him as the pigs droned on outside about surrender and “establishing a dialogue.”

Now the fun part. The easy part. The hard part.

The matchbook was from a swank hotel he occasionally treated himself to in Asheville, North Carolina…The Grove Park Inn. Sizzle flipped it open, plucked a match.

No self-reflection, no reminisces.

He just wanted to smell it, even if the smell was his own flesh burning.

He struck a match, stared for three long seconds at the gorgeous yellow flame.

“A little spark is followed by a great flame.”

102

Knowing I wouldn’t have easy access to the book again, I asked Tom to hold it up and took pictures of that page and of the cover. Then Herb passed it along to the lab guys.

“So who is LK?” Tom asked me. Herb apparently hadn’t briefed him.

“We think it’s Luther Kite,” I said.

Tom nodded solemnly. Everyone had heard about my encounter with Kite. I had to testify at the inquest of the person I’d watched him murder. At the time, I’d sustained a broken leg. That had healed, but the things I’d been forced to watch…

Let’s just say I’d rather have both my legs broken than see that again.

Phin had no idea how bad my nightmares actually were. Though I’d managed to stay clear of shrinks, some late-night Internet research supported my suspicion that I exhibited many of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. It was something I planned to attend to, after I gave birth and got Kite out of the picture. Until then, sleep and I had never been on good terms anyway. And it wasn’t like my hypertension could get any worse.

“Now that I think of it,” Tom said, rubbing his chin, “there’s rumor of a connection between Luther Kite and Andrew Z. Thomas.”

“What connection?”

“I read a lot, and sometimes I’ll check an author’s Wikipedia page. I went to the Thomas Wiki a few months back, after I read his book
The Passenger
. There are some old, unsolved crimes where both Thomas and Kite were at the same place at the same time. It’s been fodder for a lot of wild theories on Thomas’s website.”

The paramedics came with a body bag and began to take away Jessica.

I knew there was nothing more I could do here. I wasn’t a cop anymore.

But I could begin researching a connection between Kite and Thomas. Kite, evil though he undoubtedly was, didn’t have much of a police record. He was wanted for questioning in connection to a handful of crimes, and there was an arrest warrant out for him in Chicago, but surprisingly little was known about him.

I tried to text Phin, to tell him I was ready to leave, but my hand refused to work. I watched it for a moment, shaking in a palsy, and then it suddenly seemed like none of this was real, that I was in a dream and just waking up. But I couldn’t wake. Instead, everything got smaller and smaller, as if my mind was falling into a deep well.

Then it all went black.

March 15, Sixteen Days Ago
Eighteen Hours After the Bus Incident

“A
nd what’s your name?”

“Patricia.”

“Patricia what?”

“Reid.”

“May I call you Pat?”

“Um, yes. Are you going to let me go?”

“I’m going to be asking the questions here, Pat.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“It’s quite all right. Pat, do you believe you’re perfect?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Are you afraid, Pat?”

“Yes.”

“That’s good. Fear of me is the beginning of wisdom. I’m going to ask you a few questions. I want you to answer honestly and with complete candor. You heard the screaming next door, I take it?” He gestures to the concrete wall.

“Yes.”

“That gentleman didn’t think his private sins were any of my business. He made me hurt him. I wouldn’t mind hurting you, Pat.”

“You won’t have to.”

“Then you must tell me…what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? Your deepest, darkest, gravest sin.”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, take a moment to think about it.”

He watches her eyes flick to the bare lightbulb shining overhead.

“I don’t want to say.”

He lifts the Harpy off the metal table, opens it. Usually, just seeing the wicked, curving blade is enough. Pat’s eyes get wide.

“My husband…”

“Yes?”

“I cheated on him.”

“Once, or…”

“Several times…many times.”

“Did he ever find out?”

She shakes her head, and he can see that she’s telling the truth, that a nerve has been struck, because her eyes have begun to well up with tears.

“He died last year,” she says.

“Sudden?”

“Yes.”

“So you never got the chance to come clean.”

“It kills me. It eats at me. Every single day.”

“But maybe it’s better he died not knowing? Died believing you were the perfect, faithful wife?”

“I don’t know. He was my friend. I shared everything with him.”

Luther reaches across the table and touches her hand.

“Thank you, Pat. Thank you so much.”

March 31, 10:30 A.M.

“S
he has preeclampsia,” someone said.

The voice sounded familiar. I opened my eyes, but instead of being home in bed, I found myself strapped to a gurney in the back of an ambulance. Phin was holding my hand.

“No, she doesn’t.” A woman. Paramedic. Bulging cheeks and a stern expression. “That was a tonic-clonic seizure. This isn’t preeclampsia. It’s full-on eclampsia. Why isn’t this woman on bed rest?”

“This woman can hear you,” I said, though my tongue felt thick and the words came out more slurred than I’d expected.

I heard a rapid
beepbeepbeepbeep
and saw some sensors on my enormous, protruding, bare belly. I traced the sound to a machine.

“Cardiograph looks okay,” said the medic. “The fetus doesn’t appear to be in distress. But you should be at home, resting. Has anyone talked to you about inducing?”

I tried to sit up, but the strap around my shoulders wouldn’t let me. I could see Herb, Tom, and McGlade all staring at me through the rear ambulance doors, each practicing their expressions of intense disapproval. Though McGlade’s looked more like a hangover.

“Can I leave?” I asked.

“We should take you to the hospital for observation. Your husband said—”

I shot Phin a glance. “He’s not my husband. Unstrap me. Now.”

The medic didn’t move.

“Look,” I said. “I promise I’ll go straight home and rest. I know all about eclampsia. There’s nothing that can be done to treat it, other than giving birth. And I’ve still got three weeks before that happens. So there is absolutely no reason for me to go to the hospital. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” the paramedic said. “The next time you have a convulsion, you may not ever wake up again. If you know all about eclampsia, then you’re familiar with the term
multi-organ failure.
Both you and your baby are in serious danger. You should go to the hospital.”

“That’s my choice,” I said. “Not yours.” I met Phin’s eyes. “And not his.” I noticed I had an IV in my arm. “What’s that?”

“Magnesium sulfate. For the convulsions.”

“It’s making me sick.”

“No, that’s your toxic body making you sick. You’ve basically become a factory for manufacturing poisons. Until you have this child—”

I nearly lost it. The tears welled up suddenly, and almost erupted in a sobbing jag to end all sobbing jags. I was stubborn, but I wasn’t an idiot. I knew I was acting like a selfish asshole. I knew inducing labor was the right thing to do. I knew I needed to apologize to Phin and everyone else.

But I managed to squeeze my eyes shut and keep everything inside. It was more than just my unpreparedness for motherhood. There was a very bad man after me. A bad man who no doubt knew my doctors, knew my due date, and might very well be watching me right now.

I wasn’t prepared to fight that man while a baby suckled at my breast. And as vulnerable as I was, I couldn’t rely on my friends to get me out of this mess.

But maybe I could compromise a little.

“Geneva,” I said, my voice cracking. “I’ll go to Geneva.”

I felt Phin grasp my hand.

“You’re sure?” he whispered.

I nodded, no longer able to trust talking without blubbering.

“Thank you, Jack,” Phin said, kissing my forehead.

I somehow managed to mumble, “Please take me home,” without having a complete breakdown.

March 31, 11:30 A.M.

M
idmorning on the third floor of Lewisohn Hall, the dismal light crept in through the blinds into the cluttered, cramped office of Reginald Marquette, PhD, Department Chair of Ancient Literature at Columbia College.

The knock at the door drew Marquette’s head up from the paper he’d been reading—a twenty-five-page thesis on William Blake’s
Proverb of Hell
that was so well-done he was almost certain the author hadn’t written a single word of it. She’d been a solid C student all semester, and had never produced anything approaching this caliber of excellence. Her mistake was in not buying the B version and keeping this quantum leap in academic performance plausible.