calling Mickey when he was sure.
'Drop whatever you're doing,' Mason told him.
'No problem. I'm not doing anything,' Mickey said.
'I get what I pay for,' Mason said. 'Find Blues and Harry. Tell them to sit on Arthur and Carol Hackett round the clock until I catch up to them.'
'That's it?' Mickey asked. 'You tell me to make a phone call and you complain that I'm getting paid to do nothing? I make a pretty damn fine phone call.'
'The best in the business,' Mason told him. 'Don't forget to dial the area code first. I left the passkey to the Cable Depot in the center drawer of my desk. Get over there and see if you can get into Trent Hackett's office.'
'What am I looking for?' Mickey asked.
'Trent's the wild card in all of this. I can't connect him to Centurion and Nix. I need someone to take a fresh look, find what I'm missing.'
'Didn't the cops go through everything after Trent was killed?'
'Sure they did, and once they charged Jordan with killing her brother, they forgot about it.'
'What are you up to?' Mickey asked.
Mason told him, extracting Mickey's promise not to round up Harry and Blues for a posse. He made his way to Sanctuary's second floor, trying to make sense of Bowen's discovery. Mason found the explanation in the image of the trash chute that ran from Arthur Hackett's office to the Dumpster behind the Cable Depot, and in Paula Sutton's reaction when he showed her Jordan's cell phone. He understood it more fully when he thought about Carol Hackett's maternal detachment.
The second floor was a dormitory, eight bedrooms, two to a room, three large bathrooms for the sixteen full- time residents. Mason poked his head in each room, the stripped beds, empty drawers, and torn corners of posters left on the walls reminiscent of college dorms everywhere, giving no hint that they were a grand illusion intended to conceal the black market run by Centurion and Nix.
The center stairwell went from the basement to the second floor. Mason went downstairs, looking for access to Centurion's third-floor apartment, finding it behind a pair of French doors that concealed an elevator. Stepping in, he picked up a queasy chill, an involuntary reminder of the last ride he took on a private elevator. SWAT team boot prints were still visible on the carpeted floor of the elevator, comforting Mason with the knowledge that the elevator worked and that Centurion's apartment was empty.
The elevator opened onto a space that no corporate donor could have underwritten unless Centurion was sleeping with the CEO. The floor was polished parquet wood, the rugs Persian, the walls papered with gold-fleck fabric. The ceilings were high, the art was modern, the furniture oversized and plush. The place was also a wreck, with chairs and sofas pushed out of position, tables overturned, and paintings hanging at cockeyed angles. Mason couldn't tell whether the disarray was the result of Centurion's hurried departure or the SWAT team's search.
The burnt smell of the fire drifted throughout the apartment carried on a cold breeze through the open sliding door in the master bedroom that led onto the widow's walk. He had noticed the widow's walk the first time he came to Sanctuary, a narrow passage around the outside of the third floor. At the time, it had seemed like an architectural indulgence, a feature without a purpose. He stepped outside. It was five feet wide with a waist-high rail, affording an expansive view in every direction. He could see the helicopter's searchlight stabbing into the woods. He could make out the red taillights of the SWAT team vehicles bouncing down the rough path behind the barn. Beyond the woods, he could see the emergency flashing lights of roadblocks set up on the highway and the fire trucks racing to put out the fire he had started.
Three stories below, the outer walls of the barn had collapsed, bringing down the remains of the roof, the fire subsiding for lack of fuel, though still hot and dangerous. Gray smoke rose from the pile, accented by eerily glowing debris and sporadic bursts of flame. Mason gripped the wrought-iron rail with one hand, pounded it with the other, tormented by what he saw, tortured by what he heard.
'Jump,' Centurion said from behind him.
Mason wheeled around, his back to the night. Centurion stood just inside the bedroom, framed by the sliding door, his left arm wrapped around Abby's neck, his right hand holding a pistol to her temple. Compared to Centurion's bulk, Abby was a rag doll, wedged against his chest, her head jerked up against the barrel of the gun. Her face was flushed, her eyes frantic, darting from Mason to Centurion.
'I said jump,' Centurion repeated.
'Is that the same offer you made to Gina Davenport?'
'Mason, you are hardly worth killing, though I'm going to enjoy doing it. I didn't kill that radio bitch. Now get that out of your head. If you woulda just left well enough alone and let Jordan plead guilty, none of this woulda happened, man. You wouldna gone sniffin' around my business, and I woulda lived happily ever after and you woulda just lived. Now you gonna die.'
'I can get you out of here,' Mason said. 'Let Abby go. There's only one cop outside. I'll distract him, you take the Lexus in the garage. You want a hostage, take me.'
'Mason, I am not stupid. You're about the most worthless hostage there is. Who gives a shit what happens to a smart-mouth lawyer? Now this little girl,' he said, yanking on Abby's neck, 'she be worth something.'
'You're running out of time,' Mason said. 'The fire department will be here in a few minutes, the cops will give up on the woods and come back. You'll be trapped no matter how many hostages you have.'
'Uh-uh,' Centurion said. 'I'm not trapped. I'm hiding. I got me one of them panic rooms built behind my closet. Got all the conveniences and enough supplies for a week. I just come out to see what was going on. I can wait a couple of days if I have to. No one is going to find me.'
'Then you can't kill me,' Mason said, 'or the cops will know you're still here and they'll take this place apart a brick at a time to find you.'
'That's why you're gonna jump, cockroach. Ain't nobody gonna blame that on me.'
Mason looked over his shoulder. The cop Samantha had left behind was on the other side of the house. Mason put his hands in his suit jacket, grasping the handle of the box cutter in his right side pocket.
'No, thanks,' Mason said. 'You better shoot me.'
Centurion grinned, a demon smile. 'I'll shoot your girlfriend first, Mason. You want to save her, kill your own damn self.'
Mason and Abby looked at each other, seeing nothing else for an instant, pledging themselves to one another with a slight nod. Mason turned his right side toward the rail so Centurion wouldn't see him draw the box cutter, palming it as he gathered himself. Mason gazed over the rail, then looked back at Centurion, flashing his own delusional grin.
Abby screamed, a piercing shriek distracting Centurion as she plunged her hand into his groin, squeezing his testicles with a fury. Enraged, Centurion flung her off of him, aiming his gun at her as Mason launched himself through the open door, adding his own primal yell. Centurion swung his gun toward Mason, firing and missing as Mason, wielding the box cutter, opened bloody gashes on Centurion's arms. Another swipe on the wrist severed Centurion's grip on his gun. Centurion smashed Mason in the face, the blow knocking him out the sliding door, onto the widow's walk, and halfway into next week, the box cutter skittering over the edge into the gutter.
With no room to maneuver, Mason ducked Centurion's next swing, stepping inside, punching the bigger man in the chin and kneeing him in the gut, getting caught in a suffocating bear hug, Centurion dangling him over the rail like a bag of dirty laundry. Mason squirmed, kicking his legs, hitting air, pounding Centurion's ears with his fists, catching Centurion's sweat in his eyes, not believing the gunshot that loosened Centurion's grip. Mason held on to Centurion as he swayed unsteadily, his eyes fixed, his mouth wide, his body crumbling and falling over the rail. Mason grabbed the wrought-iron bars as Centurion tumbled past him.
Mason's hands slid down the bars, his grip holding at their base, his feet scraping the side of the house. Abby shouted for him, reaching through the bars, her hand clasping his wrist.
'I've got you,' she said, pulling him up enough that he could throw his leg onto the ledge, then helping him back over the rail.
'I killed him,' Abby said.
'Don't apologize,' Mason told her.
