spare to cruise the area. West L.A. Division can stake out his apartment building in case he’s stupid enough to return. His girlfriend works at Bullock’s in Westwood. It would be advisable to take her into protective custody and squeeze her for anything she knows.”
Patterson nodded. “I’ll alert security at all the local airports, the bus station, the train station.”
“Rental car companies,” Moore said. “And his bank-he may try to withdraw funds, close out his accounts.”
“Got it.” Patterson moved off to speak with the LAPD Valley Bureau commander, who had just arrived on the scene.
Lovejoy waited till the assistant SAC was gone before permitting any crackup of his surface calm. Then he lowered his head, wrestling with the urge to scream.
“Fuck. We blew it. Blew it.”
A wet sneeze shook him. Suddenly his allergies were back, as if in punishment for failure.
“We’ll get him, Peter,” Moore said gently.
“That’s what we thought this morning.”
“Next time-”
“Next time may be too late. I mean… he’s done seven already. Who’ll be number eight?”
Moore took his hand, squeezed it tight. She had no answer.
Jack sat in a window seat at the back of the bus, watching the smoggy wasteland of the San Fernando Valley shudder past. He felt calm and confident and wonderfully self-possessed.
He had beaten them. Beaten them all. Cheated the law of its prize.
Across the aisle, a little boy was practicing coin tricks while his Latino nanny looked on.
The boy smiled at Jack. “I can do magic.”
Jack nodded. “So can I.”
“Really?”
“Let me show you.”
He took out a quarter and passed it deftly from hand to hand, then palmed it. A simple illusion he’d learned years ago while running a street-corner shell game.
“Wow,” the boy said. “You made it disappear.”
“I can do better magic than that. I can make myself disappear.” He lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “In fact, I just did.”
He couldn’t stay invisible for long, though-not in this city. He had to get out. And he knew where to go.
Jack checked his watch. Ten o’clock. He could make it to LAX by eleven-thirty at the latest. There had to be a noon flight to Miami. He would land by nine p.m. Eastern time.
From there it was less than a two-hour drive to Islamorada… and Pelican Key.
7
Night sounds, drifting like echoes of dreams through the heavy tropical air.
From the mangrove swamp, the choral croaks of rain frogs, excited by the afternoon’s brief downpour. Out on the tidal flats, the cries of night herons, feeding. Kee-o, kee-o, keer: the song of a redheaded woodpecker nesting amid the forest’s mossy conifers. Everywhere, the background buzz of cicadas, an endless static sizzle.
The rippling shallows around the dock, dimly visible through gaps in the garden foliage, coruscated lazily in the starlight. The sparkle on the horizon marked Upper Matecumbe Key and the flow of traffic on Route 1.
There were nights when faint noises could be heard from passing boats, someone’s laughter or the tinny nocturnes of a radio wafted across the water by a westerly breeze, but not tonight. Tonight, Pelican Key listened only to itself.
“It really is perfect here.” Kirstie Gardner reached down to rub Anastasia’s smooth neck, and the dog eased out a sigh. “Like another world.”
Steve kicked off his loafers and curled his toes, reclining in the wicker lounge chair.
“I didn’t exaggerate, did I?” he asked quietly. “There’s something special about this place.”
“It’s the colors, I think. They’re more intense than in real life.” Kirstie laughed. “Listen to me. Real life. As if this isn’t real.”
“I know what you mean, though. The water-it’s not like water anywhere else. Stripes of color. Turquoise and teal. It ripples like a flag.”
“And the sunsets. The one tonight-I’ll bet they don’t have them like that even in Arizona.”
“The wildflowers… the birds… even the insects are colorful. Those big red and gold spiders are really something.”
Kirstie shuddered. “Yeah. They’re something, all right.” She waved off a whining mosquito. “Frankly, the bugs I could do without. They’re the one imperfection. The flaw in paradise.”
“The serpent in the garden,” Steve said lightly, then frowned. She saw the faraway look in his eyes she knew too well, the look that said he was drifting off into private thoughts. She spoke briskly, hoping to pull him back.
“That’s right. There’s always something around to foul up Eden.” The mosquito buzzed her again, and she annihilated it with a handclap. “But these darn bugs are worse than any serpent. There are more of them, and they’re annoying. In fact, they’re downright rude. The serpent, at least, was polite.”
Steve blinked, coming out of himself. “Was he?”
“Oh, I’m sure he was. Very smooth, very charming. Good-looking, too.”
“A good-looking snake?”
“He’d make you think so. Maybe by hypnosis. You’d trust him implicitly, though you couldn’t say why.”
“Eve was the one who trusted him. Maybe he’s only good at deceiving women.”
Kirstie smiled, pleased that he was playing along. “Back then, maybe. Women have a lot more savvy now. Today it would be Adam who’d pick the apple.”
“No snake could tempt me with any lousy apple. I can’t be bought that cheap.”
“What would tempt you?” she asked half seriously. “What would constitute an irresistible offer?”
Steve closed his eyes. A long moment passed before he answered. “Maybe… to be young again. Young forever.”
“You’re thirty-five. Not exactly Methuselah.”
“I mean fifteen, sixteen. You know what we were saying about colors? That’s the way I felt back then. Not just about Pelican Key. About everything. The whole world was more… I don’t know, more vibrant. More vivid.”
“And now it’s gone gray?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Young people have problems, you know. Growing up is no picnic.”
“I realize that. But when you’re a kid, your problems are outside you. Not… not within you.”
“What’s within you that’s so terrible?”
“Nothing. Forget it.”
Kirstie sighed. How many times had he ended a dialogue that way? It’s nothing. Just forget it. As if she could forget. As if what troubled him was no more than an upset stomach or a passing headache.
She wanted to help her husband get over this midlife crisis he was having, or whatever it was that had him in a vise. But he wouldn’t let her help. Wouldn’t talk to her at all.
Of course, he had always been emotionally muted, somewhat distant and remote. For most of their marriage she hadn’t minded. The overly sensitive, encounter-group type of male had never interested her; she met enough of them at the PBS affiliate where she worked.
But a degree of masculine reserve was one thing; a total shutdown of communication was another. For months Steve had been moody almost to the point of clinical depression. And he refused to open up about it. Refused to let her share his pain.
She had hoped that visiting the island would revive his spirits. Apparently not.
