well?
Distracted, Boldt answered, “Five days now. Precious little to go on. We’ve lost her for the time being. Worse, we know he’ll strike again in the next few days.”
“What’s he doing with them?”
He shrugged. “Speculation.”
“You’re in a sick business.”
“With sick people. LaMoia calls the kidnapped children thumb-suckers. One of the Feds, a guy named Hale, he calls them ‘milk cartons,’ because their pictures used to be on the sides.” He saw a dying mother, not a sick woman-this happened occasionally. “You don’t need to hear this.”
“You could use some sleep,” she said kindly.
He couldn’t take sympathy coming from her.
She needed the sleep, not him, the insomnia having come with the bed rest, the bed rest with the treatment, the treatment with the disease. She refused the pills. She gladly accepted his reading to her, if and when his schedule allowed, which depended on Marina’s schedule. Lately, everything depended on something. Nothing stood alone: Even the grandest of trees anchored itself in the earth.
“Did you see the kids at all today?” she asked in a tone that bordered on accusation.
He answered with silence, for he would never lie to her. He devoted every spare minute to his two children, but to a mother in a hospital room this would seem like too little.
She suggested, “Maybe if you drove them to day care instead of Marina.”
“I’ll bring them by to see you tomorrow night after dinner.” He drove them to day care three days a week. Argument had no place here. He and his wife had fallen deeply in love again. If only he might be given a second chance. …
“Can I read to you?” he asked.
“Please.”
He dug around on her cluttered end table looking for the Mahfouz novel she had been reading.
“Not there. Here.” She strained to her right, fingers searching. Her nightgown fell open and he saw the broad freckled skin of her back. Her ribs showed. He didn’t know that back. It belonged to a different woman.
He subscribed to the belief that two could solve their individual problems better than one person alone. He felt terrified by the thought he might lose her.
“Read this,” Liz said, handing him a leather-bound Bible that Boldt had never seen. Numbered metal tabs marked sections. “Start at seven. The text is marked in chalk.”
Sight of the Bible sent a shiver through him. Did she sense the end? Had she spoken with her doctor? Panic flooded through him.
“Anything you want to tell me?” he asked, his voice breaking, the Bible shaking slightly in his hands.
“Number seven,” she said. “It’s marked.”
He fumbled with the book. He had ridden this roller coaster for months; he wasn’t sure how much longer he could endure it.
He cleared his throat and read aloud, his voice warm and resonant. She loved his reading voice.
Liz closed her eyes and smiled.
Some things were worth the wait.
CHAPTER 9
The Town Car stuck out, black and gleaming, showroom fresh. It was parked out front of Boldt’s home, beneath a street light, ostentatious and isolated, as if none of the other neighborhood cars, unwaxed and dull from a winter of rain, wanted to socialize with it. Boldt slowed the Chevy as he drove past, turned into his drive and pulled to a stop.
Gary Flemming sat at the kitchen table with Miles on his lap, speaking Spanish to Marina who was doing dishes. Sarah, in an outrigger high chair, had a cherub face smeared in pulverized pears. Caught in the midst of a euphoric laugh, Marina glanced toward Boldt, registering disappointment as if he’d spoiled the party.
Flemming put down Sarah’s baby spoon-it was Boldt’s joy to feed his daughter in the evenings-and met eyes with Boldt, who immediately felt uncomfortable in his own home. He wished Miles would get off the man’s lap. Sensing this, Flemming eased the boy down to the floor. Miles ran for Boldt’s leg and attached himself. Flemming wiped Sarah’s chin with her bib.
“Mr. Flemming with FBI,” Marina explained, eyes to the dishwater.
“Yes, we’ve met,” Boldt said.
“A handshake at a crime scene is hardly what I would call an introduction,” Flemming said. “You’ll pardon my intrusion, but I’ve seen nothing but hotel rooms and offices for the past six months. I thought we should meet.”
Boldt motioned reluctantly toward the living room. There was something not right about Flemming coming here. Marina stole another glance toward her employer. Miles clawed to be held. Boldt hoisted him into his arms, stopped at the high chair and took Sarah as well.
Standing, Flemming made the chair look small and the kitchen table like something from a kid’s set. The two men sat across from each other, Boldt on a couch. Miles bailed out and went running back to the kitchen. Boldt held Sarah in his arms and cleaned her up with his handkerchief.
Flemming’s voice resonated in the small space. “You know, when we looked toward Seattle, we were quite convinced that you would be behind the wheel of this one.”
“It’s good to be wrong once in a while.”
“I’ve offended you by coming into your home. I apologize. Your housekeeper offered. I shouldn’t have accepted. As I said, the hotels. …”
“Surprised is all.”
“Fresh start?”
“Sure,” Boldt agreed, but he didn’t like the individual attention. He didn’t like this man being in his house at all.
“Ten kids, six months and few leads. You’ve worked some big cases here. Worked them successfully, I might add. That’s why we were so convinced this would be yours.”
“But it’s not.”
“On paper at least.”
“It’s not my case.”
“An intelligence officer at crime scenes?”
“I was asked to have a look around, that’s all.”
“My point exactly,” Flemming said. “And I like to know the players.”
“Am I a player?” Boldt asked rhetorically, finishing with Sarah’s hands. “I suppose so. But on the bench. I doubt I’m worth your time.”
“In the bullpen is more like it,” Flemming corrected. “Third base coach, maybe. I can see you standing out there waving LaMoia toward home.”
“He’s good. You’ll find that out if you give him a chance.”
“You see me as a control freak.”
“You
“As Intelligence officer, you’ve run background checks on me and Hale and Kalidja. Anything I can clarify?”
“As Intelligence officer, I’ve waited for crime scene reports that have never arrived. Interviews with the parents. Local cop reports. You want to do this alone, in a vacuum, that’s your business, Special Agent. You want to look down your nose at us, that’s your business. A pitcher can’t win a game all by himself.”
“Then you like baseball.”
“Hate it. But my CAP lieutenant loved the game. Lived for it. Softball. PAL league, some city intramural stuff.
