ONE UNION SQUARE BUILDING
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
The following day, Sloane separated the McFarlands and Gallegoses in two conference rooms, not wanting either to feel pressured by the other’s decision. He knew Kendall’s motivation to settle was to avoid the media, and he couldn’t blame them for making it an all-or-nothing deal. It had, however, placed him in a difficult situation. It was reasonable to assume, given that they had already returned more than three million dollars, that the McFarlands would turn down Kendall’s offer. The Gallegos situation, however, was completely different. For them a million dollars could substantially change their lives and the lives of their children.
As Sloane walked down the hall to where the Gallegoses waited, Tom Pendergrass intercepted him. “The court in San Francisco granted the TRO, David.”
Sloane had expected as much, given his decision not to contest it. “What about the custody hearing?”
“Two weeks from today. The court ordered briefs filed by the end of this week. I’m going to need some time to talk with you. The court looks at the child’s living situation, school, finances. There are a lot of factors.”
Sloane looked at his watch. “Okay, let’s catch up this afternoon.”
The Gallegoses sat at the conference room table still wearing their coats and looking concerned and uncomfortable. Sloane greeted them in Spanish to try to ease their anxiety. It only partially worked. Manny smiled, but Rosa-Maria continued to fidget with an oval-shaped medal around her neck.
“It’s beautiful,” Sloane said of the blue and silver medallion at the end of the chain.
She moved her hand so that he could better see it. “It is Our Lady of Guadalupe,” she said, still speaking Spanish. “Are you familiar with her?”
“I’m afraid not.” Sloane knew Mary was considered to be the mother of Jesus Christ, and he had learned somewhere that 90 percent of the households in Mexico had an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in their homes, a higher percentage than the population of Catholics in the country.
“I’m sorry,” she said, replacing the medallion beneath her shirt.
“No,” Sloane said, sensing that the medal gave her comfort. “Tell me.”
Rosa-Maria explained that the Lady had appeared to Juan Diego, a Native American, on a hilltop outside of Mexico City during the fifteenth century and told him to instruct the bishop to build a church on that site. When the bishop resisted, demanding some sign, Diego returned in mid-December with his cloak filled with roses. Upon spilling them at the bishop’s feet he revealed the image of the Lady imprinted on the fabric. Five hundred years later that image remained behind glass on a church wall and showed no signs of decay.
“My mother named me Rosa for the roses and Maria for Our Lady,” she said. “We pray to her every night that she will take care of our Mateo and now, that she will look after your wife as well.”
Sloane was moved by her comment and thanked them both. He also sensed that her telling the story had relaxed her, and it made him again wish that he had that same kind of faith, but if he had ever had that gift as the young boy preaching in the mountains of Oaxaca, the ensuing years of loneliness and isolation had stolen it from him.
It was time to get to it. “I received a telephone call yesterday from Kendall’s attorney.”
“The woman?” Manny asked.
“She asked to meet with me following the hearing. Kendall wants to settle this matter.”
“Settle? How?” Manny asked.
“They want to pay you one million dollars.” The number caused Manny and Rosa-Maria to sit back.
“And the McFarlands?” Manny asked.
“Yes, both of you.” Sloane did not tell them they both had to agree.
“What did the McFarlands say?” Manny asked.
“This is your decision,” Sloane said. “I want you to make your decision independently before we talk further. I know it’s a lot of money. Why don’t I give you some time to think about it?”
“That is not necessary,” Rosa-Maria said. “Since you came to our home we have prayed every night to Our Lady. We believe that she sent you to us, for Mateo and the other children.”
Sloane deflected the statement. “I’m no angel,” he said.
“We have talked to the McFarlands. We know they gave back the money they received from the doctor and that you did too. We know that you are a man of principle, a good man. Your wife has died and yet you are here, trying to help us.”
Sloane felt a twinge of guilt, knowing his motives were not completely altruistic.
“If you can do it, so can we,” Rosa said.
“I’m here for my own reasons, but they are not your reasons, and I don’t want them to influence you in any manner. You need to make the decision that is best for you and your family. A million dollars would do a lot to change your lives and your children’s lives.”
“But we told you,” Rosa-Maria said. “This is not about the money. We have never had much, but we were happy. No money will ever bring back our Mateo. We will be happy only when we know that other families will not suffer. We don’t want their money. We want you to stop the toy.”
“I can’t promise you I can do that.”
“But you will try.”
“Yes, I will try,” Sloane said. “But I might not succeed, and then Kendall will not make this settlement offer again.”
“Then we will pray to Our Lady to help you win.”
Sloane didn’t know what to say. He knew what a million dollars would mean to them, and yet here they sat, not even considering it. It was a remarkable sacrifice, and he could only hope that he would be able to justify the depth of their faith in him.
THE KETTLE
GEORGETOWN, WASHINGTON, D.C.
ANNE LEROY WALKED down steep concrete steps that smelled of mold despite what looked like a fresh coat of paint. She pushed through Dutch doors into hazy, yellow-tinted light. As with the rest of the country, smoking had been prohibited in most drinking establishments in Georgetown, including the Kettle, but the smell of tobacco, smoked in the below ground bar for more than two hundred years, still seeped from the heavy wooden beams across the ceiling.
The plank floor was scattered with sawdust, and LeRoy circled the bar, glancing behind the wood-and-glass dividers separating the booths. No neon signs hung on the wall advertising beer, nor were there any metal street signs or posters of athletes. No televisions blasted out the evening’s sporting events, though she knew the Nationals were playing a night game. The Kettle sought to remain as it had been in the late 1700s, when it was rumored to be a drinking establishment of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and a few other of the nation’s founding fathers. And yet, despite its aversion to modern technology, the bar still maintained a steady and faithful clientele, mostly from the nearby Georgetown campus.
LeRoy liked it because it was a quiet place to get a beer and an inexpensive bite to eat within walking distance of her apartment where she didn’t have to worry about some jerk trying to hit on her.
Not seeing Peggy Seeley, LeRoy slipped off her backpack, shook the water from her hair from the unexpected late-afternoon thunder shower, and took a seat in an empty booth. When the waitress did not descend on her like a bird of prey she unzipped her pack and took out her latest Kevin O’Brien novel, opening to the dog-eared page. Three pages later the waitress stood beside her table, and LeRoy contemplated ordering the macaroni and cheese but decided instead on her usual, a Sam Adams and a cheeseburger. The waitress didn’t ask her how she wanted it cooked. The cook didn’t care. It would come with a heaping of grease-dripping French fries, the oil saturating a paper-lined wooden basket.
When the waitress departed, LeRoy watched Peggy Seeley step through the doors and turn a corner, peering into the booths. She leaned out and flagged her down.
Seeley slipped in the other side of the booth, sounding exasperated. “I walked by this place three times,” she said. “I was about to call your cell.”
It was no wonder, given the amount of dust and particulates on the lenses of Seeley’s wire-rimmed glasses. “Didn’t you see the lantern above the door?”
“Obviously not. You didn’t tell me the door was below ground.” Seeley looked at the fire burning in a brick fireplace. “I feel like I’m in a Harry Potter novel. Do these walls open up into Diagon Alley?”
The waitress approached, pen on pad, but didn’t say a word.
“You want something to drink or eat?” LeRoy asked.
“What do you have?” Seeley asked.
The waitress leaned across the nicked and scarred table to grab a rectangular menu about twice the width of a bookmark and handed it to Seeley. Seeley considered it with a frown. “Could I get a salad and a glass of white wine?”
“Oil and vinegar?” the waitress asked.
“Do you have ranch?”
“Nope.”
“Then I guess so.”
Seeley opened her briefcase, pulled out a section of the newspaper folded in half, and slid it across the table to LeRoy. The headline indicated the article was about a lawsuit in Washington State against a toy company. Beneath it was a photo of a good-looking, dark-haired man in a suit and tie, an attorney named David Sloane.
“Tell me he’s your rich uncle and he’s single,” LeRoy said.
“You wish. Read,” Seeley said.
LeRoy did.
Associated Press
SEATTLE—Attorney David Sloane is back at it. Yesterday, on the steps of the King County courthouse in Seattle, Sloane announced a product liability action against a local landmark, Kendall Toys, Inc.
Sloane’s complaint alleges that two children, Austin McFarland (6) and Mateo Gallegos (4), died from the ingestion of tiny magnets embedded in a toy that were freed when pieces of the toy broke. Yesterday the company struck back, filing for a temporary restraining order to prevent Sloane and the two families from disclosing any information concerning the design of the as yet unreleased toy. A spokesperson for the company denied the allegations, calling the press conference “a publicity stunt.”
“Holy shit,” LeRoy said. “This is exactly what my research warned against.”
“I know,” Seeley said.
“What did Payne say?”
“What do you mean what did he say?”
“You didn’t show this to him?”
“God, no. I’m not supposed to have anything to do with you or your report.”
“But this changes everything. This is exactly why I was doing the investigation.”
“It changes nothing.”
“What are you talking about? I should call him, maybe—”
“Maybe what? It isn’t going to happen, Anne.”
LeRoy sat back, not because she was deflated, but because a thought struck her. A flame sizzled and flickered over the counter separating the bar from the small kitchen, illuminating the chef in a burst of light.
“Anne?”
“What if he knew?”
“What if who knew? What are you talking about?”
“This story, this, the magnets, what if Payne knew?”
“I’m not following you.”
LeRoy leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Remember I said that none of this made any sense: Payne shutting down an investigation that he asked me to pursue, how excited he was about the initial findings and telling me that he was going to take it to Senator Wallace.”
“Yeah.”
“What if this is the reason he shut it down? What if this company somehow knew about the report and . . .” LeRoy couldn’t finish.
“And what, Albert Payne took a bribe?” Seeley laughed. “Come on, Anne, the man won’t take an extra cookie at a party until he knows everyone has had one.”
LeRoy sat back, frustrated. “It’s just . . . The timing is an odd coincidence, you have to admit that.”
“Timing has nothing to do with it. We never even would have given the article a second glance if you hadn’t been doing the investigation. We’re just sensitive to it, that’s all.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right. Besides, you sent it back, didn’t you?”
“What?”
“The report. You sent back the memory stick, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m going to.”
“Going to?” Seeley asked with alarm. “You haven’t done it yet?”
“I’ve been busy.”
“What, painting? Are you looking for trouble?”
“But don’t you see?” She tapped on the article, her finger hitting the attorney directly between the eyes. “This vindicates my research. It vindicates what I was doing. Payne can’t pull the funding now. He can’t.”
“He already did. Besides, Anne, he’s still acting bizarre. I saw him the other afternoon coming out of the bathroom, and he looked like he had just thrown up. He left and didn’t come back. He doesn’t look well. He still has that rash.”
LeRoy studied the article further. “Maybe it’s Maggie Powers.”
“What?” Seeley said, sounding more exasperated.
“Maybe she told Payne to pull the funding. Maybe she knows something about this. She was in the toy industry. Maybe somebody just didn’t want a report about magnets coming out because of something like this.” She tapped the article again. “Maybe she’s pressuring Payne because someone is pressuring her.”
“Like who?”
“I don’t know. Maybe this company.” She searched the article. “Kendall Toys. It says they’re coming out with a new toy that uses magnets that will revolutionize the industry. If there’s a report out there that says these magnets could be harmful . . .”
“I think you’ve been inhaling the smoke in here too long or the chemicals from your painting class have got to you. How would that company have even known you were doing a report?”
LeRoy put down the newspaper. “All I’m saying is the whole thing is weird, and this just makes it even weirder.”
“Which is exactly why you need to get rid of that report; you need to send back that zip drive. You need this like you need a hole in the head. Why would you want anything to do with this?”
LeRoy kept reading the article.
“Anne?”
“I know. I know.”
The waitress put a basket with a hamburger half-wrapped in paper and a mug of Sam Adams in front of LeRoy and the glass of wine and a salad in a wooden bowl on Seeley’s side of the table.
“So you’re going to mail back the zip drive, right?” Seeley asked.
“Yeah, I’ll give it back,” LeRoy said, but then she ignored her hamburger, focusing on the picture and the caption beneath it.
THE RENAISSANCE MAYFLOWER HOTEL
DUPONT CIRCLE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
HE COULD SPOT them from across the room, the subtle ways they carried themselves, shoulders pulled back, posture perfect, the way they tilted their heads, flirtatious, but subtle. The hemline of her dress, which carried a four-figure price tag, was an inch or two higher than necessary, the neckline an inch or two lower.
God she was delicious to look at!
Auburn hair folded behind her ears and rested against the peach-colored flesh of her back. She crossed one long, toned leg over the other, sitting at an angle, her open-toe, three-inch heel dangling from her foot. The subtle eye contact confirmed it, holding his gaze a fraction longer than necessary before diverting. Still, these things needed to be handled delicately. He couldn’t rush over like a bull elephant in heat. He had to be discerning. He watched the room to determine if anyone else had caught sight of her. Men glanced in her direction, but none looked to have the cojones to approach.
And that was part of the thrill.
He signaled to his waiter, paid his bill, and walked as if to leave, stopping at her booth, which she had selected in a discreet area of the lounge. She looked up at him with bored indifference, but he could see the hint of a smile curl the corner of her lips.
“How does a beautiful young lady such as yourself end up alone?” he asked.
She shrugged, her cleavage heaving gently. “I have bad taste in men,” she said.
“And what type of men is that?” he asked.
She ran a painted fingernail across her chin. “Bad men.”
TEN MINUTES LATER, he walked through the ornate lobby past the registration desk to the elevators, fidgeting like a schoolboy on his first date, almost unable to wait for those in the elevator to get out before he stepped in. He hit the close button three times. On the eighth floor he followed the arrows on the wall to room 827 and considered the hallway in each direction. Seeing no one, he removed the breath mint from his tongue and tossed it aside, then knocked three times. Seconds passed and he panicked, thinking perhaps he’d gotten the room number wrong, but then he heard the latch turn and the door pulled open. She was even more beautiful standing, tall and elegant. He couldn’t wait to see what she looked like on her back.
“No trouble finding me?” she asked.
He smiled. “I could find you anywhere.”
He moved forward and she let him in, pushing the door shut behind them and tilting back her head to allow his lips to slide past her cheek to her neck. He grabbed her hard about the waist, his lips moving down the contours of her dress to her breasts. He slid one strap off a shoulder. She shrugged her arm free. The other strap followed. His hands moved lower, gripping her below the waist. He felt no panty lines.
She pushed him back. “It’s a thousand,” she said. “I pay for the room. You pay for the room service.”
He liked this one. She had spirit. He pulled his billfold from his jacket pocket, counting out ten hundred-dollar bills, letting each flutter to the bed. “I hope you take cash,” he said.
She smiled. “Doesn’t everyone.”
She unbuttoned his shirt, somehow managing to remove it without removing the tie, which she tugged playfully, pulling him toward the windows. In the near distance shined the dome of the Capitol Building.
“So you’re a bad boy,” she said.
“Very bad,” he said.
She undid the buckle of his pants, then the button, and let her hand slide down his hairless flesh.
“I thought you might like a view,” she said, lowering to her knees.
Screw the view, he saw it every day. He closed his eyes. After a moment, when he had felt nothing, he opened them. She had pulled the straps of her dress back onto her shoulders.
“Hey, what gives?” he asked.
The answer came from behind him. “You, apparently.”
APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS
VIRGINIA
HE CROSSED INTO Virginia driving exactly five miles over the speed limit. With the bars closing, officers looked for cars driving suspiciously slow, as well as those maneuvering erratically. Driving the speed limit could attract police attention as much as speeding. A full moon and a blanket of stars painted the two-lane interstate a bleak white, only the shadows of the dense trees and foliage along each side visible. But for an occasional car passing in the opposite direction, the road was deserted.
After thirty minutes he exited the interstate, continuing southwest, through a thick forest. Another twenty minutes passed before he approached the unmarked turnoff. Unless a driver were searching for it, they would not likely detect it. He checked his rearview mirror for headlights. Seeing none, he killed the lights and turned, driving blind until certain he was clear of the road, then switched the lights back on. The pavement ascended a gradual slope for another mile and a quarter before coming to a rusted metal bar and, attached to it, a white sign, rusted around the edges and where the two bolts held it in place.
NO TRESPASSING
PRIVATE PROPERTY
He exited the rental car, not bothering to turn off the headlights. There was no longer a need. The property had been abandoned for more than twenty years, since the discovery that asbestos could be fatal to one’s health. The acreage surrounding the mine had been contaminated with tons of asbestos particulates and would remain that way for many decades. The cost to remediate was exorbitant, and the company had long since filed for bankruptcy. The good people of Virginia weren’t about to spend their hard-earned tax dollars to do it, and the government had dozens of other Superfund sites of higher priority.
Stenopolis had been to the property before. On the first occasion he had considered the heavy lock that secured a chain to a post cemented into the ground. From the rust he could tell that it had not been opened in years. On his second visit he had snapped the lock with a pair of bolt cutters and replaced it with an identical, though brand-new, lock and set it to his personal combination.
He now entered the four digits and pulled the heavy chain from the gate. After driving through he stopped just clear of the gate’s swing and resecured the lock.
The sagebrush continued to intrude upon the road, branches brushing against the car’s side mirrors and windows. Heavy rains had washed out the untended road, and snow and freezing temperatures left deep potholes that caused the tires to pitch and bounce. Stenopolis took his time, in no hurry and not wanting to get stuck, though he had rented a four-wheel-drive vehicle and had bought a winch with a fifty-foot steel cable. He couldn’t very well call AAA for roadside assistance.
A quarter of a mile up the unpaved road the headlights shone upon the weathered metal siding of one of the abandoned structures and reflected in windowpanes that had been cracked and broken. He drove into a dirt area that had, at one time, served as the mining company’s parking lot. The beams revealed a white, snowlike material that carpeted the soil and clung to the rusted metal piping and the equipment like Spanish moss hanging from the branches in a Louisiana bayou. In the foreground sat a large metal Quonset hut. Pipes and troughs pierced its sides, entering and exiting at odd angles. Rail spurs behind the building continued past mounds of dirt that nearly reached the roofline, and rusted metal drums, some cut in half, littered the ground. Stenopolis drove slowly up another slope and entered the facade of a metal building at the top of the ascent into the mine. Boxcars sat idly on tracks that led from the headlights’ beams into darkness. The cars had at one time carried the dirt out of the mine and dumped it into the Quonset hut for processing of the vermiculite from the stone.
Stenopolis turned off the headlights and the engine and enjoyed the utter darkness and silence. He could see nothing in front of him or behind; even the reflection of the moon stopped at the mine entrance, as if fearful to enter.
He grabbed the flashlight from the seat as he stepped out and used it to find the metal bar he had left on a prior visit. When he opened the trunk the man inside moaned, but the cloth in his mouth, secured with duct tape, prevented him from speaking or shouting for help. Not that it was needed any longer. Several additional strands of the tape wrapped around the man’s head prevented him from seeing. Stenopolis had read somewhere that enough duct tape was sold every year to circumnavigate Earth several times. He didn’t doubt it. He had found it to be a product he could put to any number of uses.
He pulled the six-inch serrated blade from its sheath and with a single flick cut through the cord that secured the man’s bound wrists to his ankles, grabbed his hostage under the arms, and pulled him from the trunk. The man continued to thrash but was more than manageable.
Stenopolis shoved the metal bar beneath the man’s left armpit and pushed it through the other side. Grabbing the pole on each extended end, he kicked the man’s legs out from underneath him, and he fell back. The man groaned in pain as the metal bar caught his body weight beneath his armpits. Stenopolis dragged him deeper into the mine, like pulling a wheelbarrow backward, the heels of the man’s shoes carving a path in the dirt that Stenopolis would erase when he had finished.
Twenty feet farther down the shaft he came to the snap hook that extended from the metal chain he had secured to a ceiling beam. He fastened the hook to the bar in the center of the man’s back, pulled the chain through the eye hook in the ceiling beam until taut, then hooked a link of the chain on one of the teeth of a gear train attached to a crank handle. He turned the handle until the chain lifted the man onto his toes and the teeth of the gear train caught, locking it in place and freeing Stenopolis to use his hands for other tasks.
The man swayed, as if pushed by a light breeze, the creaking chain against the wood beam and the wind whistling deep within the mine shaft the only sounds. The man turned his head, moaning, but this time it had less to do with the pain and more to do with his confusion as to his captor, and his fate.
Stenopolis stepped forward and used the knife to cut the tape across the man’s mouth, drawing a line of blood. He pulled the tape free and yanked the rag from the man’s mouth.
Gasping, the man desperately tried to lift his chest to suck oxygen into his lungs.
“You might not want to breathe too deeply,” Stenopolis said. “They say the stuff around here can kill you.”
“Who are you?” the man asked between gasps for air.
Stenopolis had once watched a special on the Discovery Channel about the ancient practice of crucifixions and was fascinated to learn that the victims usually did not die from their wounds or beatings. They suffocated. Their bound or pierced arms weakened until they were no longer strong enough to lift their bodies to allow their chest to expand and bring oxygen into their lungs.
“Who are you?” his guest asked again. “What do you want?”
Stenopolis flicked the knife again and pulled free the tape across the man’s eyes as he placed the stream of light beneath his chin. “Boo.”
The man jerked away. “What the . . . ?”
“Good evening, Mr. Wade.”
“Who are you?”
“I believe you already know my name, which is why we’re here.”
“I don’t know you.”
“Oh, but you do. You pulled my file just the other day.”
Curley Wade’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What file?”
“Mr. Wade, I assure you that this will go a lot more efficiently if you don’t play games with me. I’m not a patient man. It’s late and I would still like to get a few hours of sleep tonight.”
“Maybe there was a mistake. I work in Human Resources. Maybe your file was pulled by someone else.”
Stenopolis cranked the handle half a turn. The chain raised Wade another inch, enough so that his toes no longer reached the ground and the muscles of his shoulders and chest now bore his full weight. Wade grimaced.
“For an Agency man, you are not a convincing liar, but then I always did think your training lacking. I never felt you pushed your candidates far enough to find out if they would break. I’m betting you will. Now, tell me why you pulled my file.”
“Go to hell.”
Stenopolis stepped forward and put the beam of light back beneath his chin. “I’m about to show you why you can be very certain of that.”
THE RENAISSANCE MAYFLOWER HOTEL
DUPONT CIRCLE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
THE MAN SPUN. “What the hell? Who are you?”
Charles Jenkins emerged from the bathroom holding the small portable video camera that, as the salesclerk had promised, had no problem filming in the room’s limited lighting.
“Who I am is irrelevant. Who you are, Mr. Secretary of Labor, is very, very relevant.” He nodded to the woman. “You can go.”
She grabbed her jacket and small purse from the bed, along with the hundred-dollar bills.
The man stepped forward, but Jenkins stepped between them. “Hey, that’s my money.”
Amazing, Jenkins thought, but then, like many politicians, it was Hotchkin’s arrogance that had got him in trouble in the first place.
“Here’s the problem, Ed. I promised the young lady fifteen hundred dollars and I’m about a thousand short.”
Hotchkin fumed as the woman retrieved the money and continued to the door, looking back over her shoulder with a smile before stepping out.
“Who do you work for?” Hotchkin asked.
“Again, not relevant. Who you work for, very relevant. You work for the people of the United States of America. That makes you a public figure. I’m not sure the new administration needs this embarrassment, do you?”
Hotchkin sighed. “What is it you want? Money? I can get you some.”
“If I had wanted any more of your wife’s money, Ed, I would have taken the grand off the bed. Does she know how you spend her inheritance? I guess the fact that you managed to get your current appointment, despite your past indiscretions, makes that doubtful.”
Hotchkin stewed but did not respond.
Jenkins sat in the chair by the window. “Now, I’m not looking to break up a happy home or even to embarrass you, so neither your wife nor anybody else needs to know anything about what happened tonight.”
Hotchkin continued to sound skeptical. “Then what do you want?”
“I want to know how I can get in touch with Anthony Stenopolis.”
“Who?”
Jenkins took out the photograph taken by the security camera at Kyle Horgan’s apartment building and showed it to Hotchkin. In the dim light it took Hotchkin a moment for his eyes to adjust.
“I don’t know him,” he said.
Jenkins smiled. “Then tell me how you got in touch with him.”
“Are you with the FBI?”
“I’m an independent contractor with independent business with Mr. Stenopolis.”
“I don’t know how to get in touch with him.”
“About a year ago he took care of a messy problem for you. I believe you were caught in similar circumstances but the individuals involved that night weren’t as reasonable as I am. You got in touch with Stenopolis and the problem disappeared, along with the prostitute and lowlife trying to blackmail you. So did someone arrange a meeting? How did it happen?”
Hotchkin didn’t immediately answer.
“Once I get the information, you’re out of this, Ed. I’m trying to be reasonable here. Don’t force me to do something I don’t want to do.”
Hotchkin sat on the edge of the bed looking defeated. “I was given a number to call. No one answered, but I was told to leave a message.”
“What kind of message?”
“Just my telephone number. I had to answer a question when he called back.”
“What was the question?”
Hotchkin lowered his head. “‘What comes but once, can’t be avoided, and ends as soon as it begins.’”
“And the answer?”
“‘Death.’” Hotchkin said.
“I want the number.”
Hotchkin shook his head. “I don’t have it anymore. I threw it away.”
“I don’t believe you. A guy like you who can’t keep his pecker in his pants isn’t about to throw away his lifeline.”
“I did. I don’t have it anymore.”
Jenkins stood and started for the door. “Then I guess we’re done here. Sorry we couldn’t do business. Make sure you check out the front page of the Washington Post tomorrow, and YouTube. The Internet can really get those videos out there fast.”
Jenkins got halfway to the door, which was a lot farther than he thought Hotchkin’s game of chicken would last.
“Wait.”
Jenkins turned. “You have something you want to say?”
“If I give you his number you have to be certain he does not trace it back to me. You’re wrong about my ever calling him again. I won’t. I don’t want anything more to do with him, and if you were smart, you wouldn’t either.”
“Agreed. Here’s how this will work. I’ll give you a number to call. You will call and leave the telephone number after the message. If I find out you gave me a fake number, Ed, you’ll have a bigger problem than him.”
Hotchkin smirked. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
“To the contrary, I now know exactly who I’m dealing with. He’s the one who’s going to be in the dark this time.”
THE WASHINGTON ATHLETIC CLUB
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
MENTALLY EXHAUSTED, SLOANE returned to his hotel room and sat by the window, the ambient light casting half his face in shadows. He had still not been back to Three Tree Point. He had relied on Jenkins to retrieve needed clothes, and now that Jenkins was back east, he had bought what he needed.
Nights and mornings remained the most difficult. He filled the days with the only thing he knew, the only thing he had ever known before Tina and Jake—his work. His resolve to take down Kendall Toys and Malcolm Fitzgerald kept his mind occupied until the point of exhaustion, usually well past midnight. But by the time he finished the short walk back to his hotel room the memories of Tina and Jake swirled in his head, and the depth of his pain, and guilt, kept him from sleep.
IT WAS STILL dark out. Sloane slid from bed and slipped on running shorts, a T-shirt, and sweatshirt. He closed the bedroom door behind him and walked softly downstairs. In the kitchen, Bud jumped onto the counter to greet him. It wasn’t love. Bud wanted to be fed. Bud always wanted to be fed. It was a bad habit Sloane began when he first rescued the cat, feeding him at all hours of the day and night, not knowing he was establishing a pattern.
“Sorry, Bud, but Tina says you’re too fat. This is her domain. Have to put you on a diet. One meal a day.”
The cat mewed.
“Don’t I know it, brother. She’s got me eating almonds and flaxseed.”
He made himself a cup of tea and sipped it while allowing his body to wake. After ten minutes he had put off the inevitable as long as he could, slipped on his running shoes and pulled open the door, stepping out into the morning cold and dew.
He was not one of those people who looked forward to getting up at the crack of dawn for a crisp five-mile run. He had yet to ever get the adrenaline high runners claimed kicked in. His was a five-mile slog that took every ounce of discipline to keep him from turning around and heading back to bed. He forced himself to do it because his ego would not allow him to be fat. Tina was five years younger with the metabolism of a teenager. Tall and fit, she could still eat just about whatever she wanted, with minimal consequences. That was no longer the case for him. He worked out at the Washington Athletic Club downtown, but the treadmill became monotonous, and he couldn’t even think about a basketball game or racquetball match without twisting an ankle or pulling a muscle. Running the streets of Burien was his next best option.
The dampness cut through his clothing and he shivered, as if someone had dumped an ice cube down his shirt. Pulling a stocking cap over his head and a pair of thin gloves over his hands, he did windmills with his arms to generate body heat as he pulled open the gate, stepping through to the easement.
“About time you got here.”
Sloane startled and immediately balled his hands into fists. Jake stood in the easement.
“Jake? You scared the hell out of me; what are you doing up so early?”
“I’ve been waiting since six.”
“For what?”
“For you. You said you were running at six. It’s now six-ten.”
Sloane noticed the boy wore sweats and running shoes. “You want to go running?”
“You said I could.”
Jake had brought up the subject the night before, but Sloane hadn’t taken him seriously. “I thought you were kidding.”
Jake started back for the gate. “It’s okay, never mind.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on there. I didn’t say I didn’t want the company. I’d love to have you join me.”
They started down the block at a slow pace and ran along the street parallel to the Puget Sound, their feet slapping the pavement in unison.
“So why the sudden interest in running?” Sloane asked, breathing hard and waiting for his wind to kick in.
“I thought I might go out for the cross-country team,” Jake said, not sounding at all winded. Nearly thirteen, Jake was not the most coordinated kid, and athletics did not come easy. He was tall for his age, already five nine with feet nearly as big as Sloane’s. It was taking time for his skills to catch up to his growth. Junior high had been a transition, and Sloane sensed that Jake wanted desperately to play sports but was anxious about trying out.
“No kidding? I thought you wanted to try basketball?”
“I don’t know,” Jake said.
“Something bothering you?”
“I’m not very good. Mom has taken me to play a few times but . . .”
“You like to play?”
The boy’s face lit up. “Yeah.”
“Well, I know a pretty good coach. He played in high school. Started on the varsity and once scored twenty-two points in a game.”
“Really? Who?”
Sloane laughed. “Me.”
“No kidding?”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
Jake shrugged, smiling.
“What do you say we go to the gym tonight and get started?”
“That would be awesome.”
Sloane looked up. They were coming to one of two very big hills. “Race you to the top,” he said, but Jake was already three steps ahead of him.
SLOANE WOULD GIVE anything to have just one of those mornings again. He’d give anything to turn back the clock and simply decline Kyle Horgan’s file. Nothing that had transpired from that one simple act had been what he intended, but had he been blind to the unintended consequences? Had he dismissed them because, as Tina said, he felt the need to try to help everyone?
But even as he thought it, he knew he had not been wrong to take Horgan’s file. The autopsy of Austin McFarland proved it. The toy was dangerous. Children were at risk. Tina would have told him to take the case. He knew it in his heart.
So if he had done nothing wrong, why then did she have to die? Why was it always someone he loved? First his mother, then Melda Demanjuck, his Ukranian neighbor when he lived in Pacifica, and now Tina. Why had every woman he had ever loved died a violent death?
Tina had told him that he was her soul mate, that nothing would ever separate them.
She was wrong.
His cell phone rang. In a daze from fatigue and grief, Sloane found it on the floor by the chair and answered without considering the time or the caller. It didn’t matter anymore. The hours and the days bled together without distinction.
“David?”
His heart skipped a beat, and for a moment he could not speak. Was it a dream? Had he fallen asleep in the chair?
“Jake?”
“Hey, David, I just wanted to call. I had to wait until everyone went to bed. They won’t let me call you.”
He didn’t know what to say. “How are you, son?”
“I miss you, Dad.”
He fought back the tears. His voice choked. “I miss you too, Jake, more than you can imagine.”
“I want to come home. Can I come home?”
His hands shook. As much as he wanted to get on a plane and bring the boy home that night he knew he could not. He knew he had to do it the right way or risk losing Jake forever. He needed to be strong and he needed Jake to be strong. “Yes. I’m going to get you home, Jake.”
“When?”
“As soon as I can, son. We have to go through the court system now.”
“Why? I don’t understand. I want to come back. Why can’t I just come home?”
As much as he wanted to, Sloane would not bad-mouth the Larsens. They were and always would be the boy’s grandparents and Tina’s parents. “We both have to be patient, okay? Can you do that for me?”
Sloane heard the boy sniffle.
“Jake, you trust me, right? You trust that I’ll do everything I can to make sure you’re okay, right?”
“Someone’s coming. I have to go.”
“Jake?”
“I have to go.”
“Jake, I love—”
The call had disconnected.
Sloane stared at the phone, the word disconnected shouting at him. He tossed it onto the bed and threw back his head, the grief so overwhelming it physically pained him. Short of breath, he stood and tried to force air into his lungs as he paced and ran a hand through his hair.
The phone rang again.
“Jake?”
“David? Are you all right?”
Sloane closed his eyes.
“David?” Charles Jenkins sounded wide awake.
“Yeah. I’m here.”
“Bad dream?”
“I don’t think so. No.” Sloane checked the call log and confirmed the prior area code to be for San Francisco.
Mentally, he switched gears and realized it was late, after midnight. Sloane had told Charles Jenkins to call him the minute he found out anything about Tina’s killer, no matter the time. “Have you found him?”
Jenkins paused. “No. But I know who he is, and I have a way to get him to come to me.”
Sloane pondered the information. “Then I’m coming to you.”
APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS
VIRGINIA
STENOPOLIS HOOKED THE jumper cables to the car battery and flipped the switch. The metal chain pulled taut, and the cars on the rail spurs lurched and creaked, creating a cacophony of echoing noise inside the mine before inching forward with a grinding hum. The car in front, which contained the body of Curley Wade, would travel down the shaft a quarter of a mile and spill its load. Wade’s body would plummet farther, into a black hole, how deep Stenopolis did not know, but certainly deep enough never to be found.
Stenopolis pulled off his perspiration-soaked T-shirt and replaced it with a clean shirt. Wade had been more resilient than Stenopolis had expected; the man was clearly not working in Human Resources. He had displayed impressive stamina and resolve, more than most.
As the car disappeared into the darkness, Stenopolis retrieved his laptop computer and sat on a metal drum outside the mine, considering the evening sky while the machine powered up. A low blanket of millions of stars stretched to the trace glow of artificial light on the eastern horizon. He loved this time of day, often the only time he found peace.
He entered the site for a familiar search engine and typed the name Curley Wade had provided, confident that Wade had told him the truth. Once he broke a man, he did not worry about lies.
Wade had advised that Charles Jenkins had served in Vietnam and had been recruited by the Agency because he was fluent in Spanish. Jenkins had been sent to Mexico City to monitor the activities of Marxist guerrillas during a time when the United States thought it might need Mexico’s oil. However, Jenkins abruptly left the Agency, for reasons Wade clearly did not know, and disappeared before resurfacing thirty years later to ask Wade to help him identify Stenopolis from a photograph. Stenopolis was upset at being so sloppy. Ordinarily it was a mistake he would not make.
So who was this Charles Jenkins, and how did he get a photograph? Those were the ultimate questions, but others intrigued Stenopolis as well. Where had this Charles Jenkins been for the past thirty years, and what had he been doing? Could Stenopolis and Jenkins be in the same line of work? If so, Stenopolis could expect the man to be highly trained and skilled. He would have to be extremely cautious.
Over the next thirty-five minutes Stenopolis visited a number of trusted sites but found nothing on the man, and for the first time he began to wonder if he had underestimated Wade. Then he caught a break. The information was limited and did not explain where Jenkins had been for the past thirty years, but it did reveal what he was currently doing, and that was more than enough to put the rest of the pieces of the puzzle together. Two years earlier, a Charles Jenkins had applied for a license to work as a private investigator in the State of Washington.
“My my,” Stenopolis said, staring at a photograph of a light-skinned African American. “A private investigator. Mr. Sloane, you are proving to be quite resilient.”
