The Tower Part 31

Jade pulled his arm away, yanking his sleeve from Frank's hand. Frank grabbed it again. "Hey," he said loudly.

Jade glared at him and started to speak. But he reminded himself that Frank had just lost a brother, so he held his tongue. Then he noticed that the boy was winking at him.

"Why don't you let me show you Steve's room?" he said again.

The interview with the parents didn't seem to be offering any leads, so Jade figured he'd find out what the kid wanted to tell him. He stood and followed Frank down the hall.

Once the door closed to Steve's room, Frank whirled around and addressed Jade in a deep whisper. "I know why Steve was at Sutro Heights. He went there to parachute."

"To parachute?"

"Yeah," Frank said. "Free-fall jumping off cliffs. He was crazy about it-did it all the time. It's illegal, so I didn't want to tell Mom and Dad. Might upset them, you know?" He nodded maturely, cueing Jade to agree.

"Are you sure you're not f.u.c.king around here, kid? This is an important investigation."

Frank got on his hands and knees and crawled partially under the bed. He pulled out what appeared to be a parachute pack. "See?" he said. "I'm not f.u.c.king around." He really emphasized the words "f.u.c.king around." Jade could see just how much he enjoyed using them.

"If he was there to jump, then why's his parachute at home?"

Frank waved him off. "He was a fanatic. Had like four 'chutes."

"Did he usually parachute alone?"

"Sometimes, I guess, but mostly with a buddy."

Jade turned the pack over in his hands. "Well, thanks for the info, kid."

"No worries. Just don't tell Mom and Dad. They're sort of having a hard time, you know?"

Jade nodded dumbly and turned to leave. When he got to the door, he looked back at Frank. "How are you doing?" he asked.

"About Steve?"

"Yeah."

Frank shrugged. "Okay. He was kind of an a.s.shole."

Jade bit his lip. "Fair enough."

Travers fingered a bullet hole in the side of the pa.s.senger door, then climbed in the car. Jade flipped through the radio stations.

"What a weird kid," she said.

Jade laughed. "Yeah, you could say that. He thought his brother was in Sutro parachuting."

"Parachuting?"

"Like jumping-off-cliffs parachuting. Don't ask me, I just work here."

"That's interesting," Travers said. "They didn't find a parachute with the body."

"Obviously, if it was moved. But now we can cautiously a.s.sume he was killed somewhere in the hills."

Travers laughed. "Let's do that. Let's cautiously a.s.sume, shall we?"

Jade threw the car into drive. "The kid said his brother didn't usually jump solo, so we might have a missing body."

"I'll get a list of males from eighteen to, say, twenty-five who've disappeared in the past couple of days. It might be slow because we've got the forty-eight-hour window for reporting missing persons."

Jade nodded, watching the blur of pavement ahead of the car. Ever since he'd found out about Steve Francis, Jade had been telling himself that there was a good chance it wasn't his gun. There were a lot of .40s out there, and even if forensics discovered that it was a Glock, there was no shortage of those either. But now that the parachute was a potential lead, he found himself hoping that his gun had killed Steve Francis.

That's how these things progress, he thought. Through bodies.

He pulled out from the curb, and though she tried not to, Travers grabbed the seat to steady herself. "We're thinking about going door-to-door," she said. "Within the neighborhoods you circled."

Jade shook his head. "No way. There's too many places. Plus, he's way too smart to get caught with something that obvious. No hope."

"We're running in circles here. And the clock's ticking."

Even though her tone was sharp, Jade said nothing. She was right. The clock was ticking. He heard it all the time.

The leads had all been followed as far as he could run with them. Now it came down to waiting. And Jade hated waiting more than anything, especially with a rising body count. He had been straining to think of another proactive strategy, some way to draw Allander in, to turn the chase upside down. But he'd only come up with dead ends. And, as Travers had said, the clock was ticking.

51.

W O T A N pivoted his great black leather chair as he surveyed the files spread on the desk before him. Picking carefully through photographs and notes from headquarters and from Agent Travers, he a.s.sessed Marlow's progress, glad to see that Travers had come to recognize the former agent's utility.

It had been difficult, but he had managed to hold the case together for Marlow. He kept the FBI's resources open to him, and he had ordered the squad's full cooperation. Stifling some of the press and police complaints hadn't been quite as easy, since they fell outside his normal jurisdiction, but he had managed.

Wotan never once doubted the wisdom of bringing Marlow in early to handle the situation. Atlasia was worse than a time bomb; he was a disease. He had to be either captured or killed before the damage got out of control.

Wotan's task was to keep the world st.i.tched shut around both of them, to keep Marlow in the chase and in the fight. It wouldn't be so hard now that Atlasia had struck blood within the FBI.

For obvious reasons, Wotan had to find a replacement for McGuire, and had selected Fredericks, one of his senior agents. The other agents understood and no doubt shared the pain felt by McGuire; it was every man's nightmare that his vocation would put his family in harm's way. They wouldn't object to cooperating with Marlow now. Marlow's involvement promised Atlasia's delivery. It virtually guaranteed it. n.o.body knew that as well as Wotan.

Wotan shuttled the bullet slug across the tops of his knuckles. It was a holy fight. He had learned that the hard way.

Jade and Travers were exhausted. The dark circles beneath their eyes that usually came and went had taken on a look of permanence.

The enthusiasm Jade had felt at McGuire's house had faded. They had a start on locating Allander, but it was definitely a long shot. Jade had taken to counting all the dark-green houses he drove past. So far, he was up to twenty-three.

Travers pointed to the bold white letters on an exit sign. "Could get off here to eat. There's a great restaurant a ways back. A little French cafe."

Jade was quiet.

"I have my beeper in case anyone needs to reach us," she added.

"They won't," he said. "If we're dead-ended, it doesn't bode well for everyone else."

He flipped on the radio as he took the exit, and clicked through the channels, trying to find a good station. His search ended when he heard jazz pouring through his speakers. Abruptly, he pulled his head to the side and cracked his neck.

Travers directed him through some back streets to the restaurant she had in mind. It sat by itself at the edge of a yellow field that curled around the base of the Woodside hills like a sleeping cat. A rare summer storm was brewing in the heavy air, and dark clouds drifted overhead, blocking the late-afternoon sun.

As Jade pulled into the parking lot, the disk jockey started his wind-down. "That's right. We've got the golden sounds of Joshua Redman to carry us into evening. Don't forget we have a busy weekend coming up, with the Cantab Singers rocking Sat.u.r.day night at the House of Jazz in downtown San Jose. And for you more sophisticated listeners, there's the annual symphony hall fund-raiser at Singspiel's Restaurant up in the city tomorrow night, followed by Haydn's Drum Roll and-"

Jade turned the radio off. "Joshua Redman. Great young performer."

"I didn't know you liked jazz," Travers said, genuinely impressed.

"You mean I might not be all bad?" He smiled quickly, holding her eyes with his until she looked away. They got out of the car simultaneously.

Twenty minutes later, they faced each other across a table laden with food. Jade was quiet, leaning over his plate and inhaling deeply as the smell of chicken and brie rose to his nose. He hadn't realized how hungry he was until the food arrived, and he began to eat in large, slow bites, finis.h.i.+ng his meal before Travers was halfway through.

The waiter asked if they wanted wine, but Jade waved him off without even looking at him. He looked instead at the woman seated across from him. Jennifer Travers. She wore her hair down around her neck, and it fell in radiant, blond strokes. Her collarbone was just visible beneath the neckline of her s.h.i.+rt, and Jade watched it move slightly as she breathed.

Meanwhile, his mind was filled with details from the case. He didn't like the way it felt right now, as if he was chasing and not getting any closer. The leads had dried up and he didn't have much to show for them. It had been nine days since Allander's escape. With the entire state of California watching him, he was standing by while the body count rose.

"I feel terrible for McGuire," Travers said.

Jade shrugged.

"I mean, imagine. A wife dead and both children permanently impaired."

He shrugged again.

"Jade, for Christ's sake, his sons' eardrums got blown out. I mean, we should really try to do something for him."

"Why don't we get him tickets for the symphony?" he suggested coldly, looking down at his meal again.

Travers's jaw tightened, and there was a long silence.

"I don't get why he doesn't f.u.c.k them," Jade finally said, his voice loud in the relative quiet of the restaurant. A couple of people at nearby tables turned to stare.

Travers cleared her throat. "f.u.c.k . . . them, Jade?" she repeated quietly after the waiter dropped off the check.

"The kids. I mean, he's a victim of child abuse himself, and an early s.e.xual offender. Why would he stop now when he's got ample opportunity?"

"What do you think?"

"I don't know. s.e.xual insecurity, maybe even impotence."

The waiter came up in his white starched s.h.i.+rt and rubbed his hands together. "Can I take that?" he asked, pointing delicately at the brown check folder.

"Uh, we're not quite ready yet," Travers answered.

"Could be he's just waiting to direct all his s.e.xual energy toward his mother. Building up for the rape, you know." His last remark drew another stare from a woman at the next table.

"We have to prevent it. We just have to stop it."

"Well, no s.h.i.+t, Travers. I think we're doing everything we can." Jade picked up his water gla.s.s and looked into it with one eye.

The waiter returned with a half bow. "h.e.l.lo again, do you think I could-"

Jade didn't even look over at him. "I believe we said WE'RE NOT READY YET!" The waiter blinked several times, backing away.

Travers took a deep breath, trying to contain her anger. "You know, Marlow, I don't get you."

"And that's a news flash?"

"You act like no one should care about the people affected by this case, no one should care about the victims. Like it's not okay to feel badly about this. To get upset." Her voice was rising and her cheeks were flushed. People in the restaurant were again glancing at their table. "Like it's all a big f.u.c.king game. We can't ever talk like we give a s.h.i.+t about anyone, let's just use them as bait." She pushed her hair off her forehead. "We have a responsibility to these people, Jade."

"Responsibility?" Jade said. "You want to talk to me about responsibility?" The veins in his neck were bulging, though he was speaking softly. His upper lip peeled back in a grimace. "You think I don't care about these people? You don't think it's hard for me to make a decision to put people in the line of fire? Well grow up, Travers. I do these things because they have to be done. I make these decisions because no one else will. So don't you second guess me, and don't you talk to me about responsibility."

Travers took a sip of water. "Nice speech."

Jade looked away for a long time. "It's like you think I enjoy it. Putting people like Thomas and Darby at risk. And the kids, Christ, the kids . . ." His voice trailed off again. "I just can't deal with that if I'm gonna do my job." He drew a line on the table with his hand. "It's too much. It's all too much."

Travers leaned forward and laid her hand across Jade's. "Jade. I didn't . . . it doesn't seem . . . I guess the only thing I've seen you give off is anger."

The tension eased from his face, and he raised his eyes to Travers's. "Maybe guilt turns to anger if you hold on to it long enough," he said. For one awful instant, Travers thought he was going to spill tears. Seeing his face now, she realized what it was about Jade that made him so committed, so intense.

He stood suddenly, pulling money from his pocket and tossing it on the table. Then, without speaking, he turned and walked out of the restaurant. Travers closed her eyes for a moment before rising and following him.

It was raining, a thick downpour, but instead of walking to the car, he headed across the field toward the hill behind the restaurant, ignoring Travers when she called after him. She caught up with him behind the cafe.

Grabbing him by the arm, she spun him around, planting him firmly against the back wall. Water dripped off the roof and ran over his face, dripping from his hair to his forehead and down off his lips.

"I'm talking to you," she said.

"What?"

"I wanted to f.u.c.king apologize, all right?"

Jade's eyes glinted as Travers raised her hand and traced the scar on his cheek down to the thin stream of rainwater dripping off his lips. Grabbing his head with both hands, she banged it against the wall, seizing his lower lip in her mouth and feeling the water run from his mouth into her own. Her hands were at his belt and then he was out and in her hands and her mouth went to his neck.

He lowered her onto the damp field, holding an arm in the small of her back to break her fall. His knees sank in the ooze and mud between her legs, and the water stood out in beads on their bare skin as b.u.t.tons and material gave way. Travers's s.h.i.+rt was soaked and torn, her hair matted with mud, her elbows buried in mounds of soil. Thrusting forward, Jade entered her.

He froze. "Holy s.h.i.+t," he said.

Travers's nails stopped tracing their red paths up his back. "What?"

"The radio. The disk jockey. He said the symphony fund-raiser dinner was tomorrow night. Darby said they always used to go as a family. Allander will be expecting them to be there."