When She Was Bad

wanted to, you could, you know, bring me back like?”

Lyssy tried to picture how that scenario might play itself out. It sounded like the rescue fantasy of all rescue fantasies, only for real. And of course he did miss Lilith: the memory of their lovemaking was never far from his thoughts. But when he looked over at Dr. Cogan, she was shaking her head.

“Absolutely not. Even if I thought it could work, which is far from likely, reinforcing an alter identity at the expense of the original personality could have far-reaching, potentially disastrous consequences for the system. And it’s unnecessary besides-remember what I’ve been telling you all these years: Lilith is not a separate magical being, Lily-she’s part of you. There’s nothing Lilith is capable of that you’re not: when you’ve finally internalized that, you’ll have come a long way toward integrating.”

Then Irene stood up-she was still wearing Frank’s pajamas-came around from behind the desk, dragged the side chair over to the couch again. “Speaking of alters, there’s one crucial point neither of you seem to have taken into consideration,” she said, sitting opposite the two seated on the couch, her gaze traveling from one to the other, finally resting on Lyssy. “What if Max or Kinch comes back?”

It should have been the clincher; instead, Lyssy grinned.

“What’s so funny?” asked Irene.

“Max already tried,” said Lyssy. “I kicked his butt right back to the dark place.” He put his hand on Lily’s knee, gave it an encouraging squeeze. “What do you say, kiddo? You ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” she said. “C’mon, let’s get this show on the road.”

PART THREE

La Guarida

CHAPTER NINE 1

A Ferris wheel turned slowly against the hazy Santa Cruz sky. An old-fashioned wooden roller coaster roared and rattled overhead, trailing shrieks and laughter. On the carousel, painted horses and other, more fantastical creatures bobbed to the cheerful piping of a calliope. The familiar scent of popcorn, cotton candy, and corn dogs packed a Proustian wallop, sending Pender back in time to the county fairs of his boyhood in upstate New York.

After wiping the cab clean of fingerprints, he abandoned the red pickup in a metered space in front of the Carousel Motel, across the street from the Boardwalk, then strolled casually back to the weedy lot behind the bowling alley where he’d left the Barracuda only-good Lord, was it only yesterday afternoon? It seemed like months had gone by-Pender had himself half-convinced that when he got there he’d find the car missing or up on blocks, stripped.

But the ’Cuda was intact, only a thin film of dust marring the gleam of the hand-polished black finish. With a turn of the key and a little babying of the accelerator, the engine rumbled to life, setting the dust motes on the hood vibrating aimlessly like the little plastic players in one of those old electrostatic football games.

From Santa Cruz, it was a relatively straight shot down Highway 1 to Pacific Grove. Driving at a sedate ten miles over the given speed limit, with the dashboard radio tuned to a Salinas oldies station, Pender made it in just under fifty minutes. Twice during the drive he tried to call Irene; twice he reached her voice mail. Detouring past her two-story cream and tan board-and-batten house, he saw that her driveway was empty. Since she rarely garaged her new beige Infiniti (central coast homes were built for the most part without basements or attics, so storage space was always at a premium), he assumed she was out and about.

Just as well, he told himself, driving another three blocks to his cottage-he and his clothes were decidedly gamy by now. He took a quick shower, ran an electric razor over his jowls, and changed into plaid Bermuda shorts and a chocolate-brown Hawaiian shirt patterned with green palm trees and a yellow sunburst, which actually caused certain aesthetically sensitive souls to wince when they first saw it. Black socks and logan green Hush Puppies completed the outfit. He tried Irene’s phone again, got her voice mail again. Made himself a Pender-size sandwich of ham and Swiss on rye for supper. Redial; voice mail. Washed it down with a pony bottle of Rolling Rock. Redial; voice mail.

Man, I hope she hasn’t left town, thought Pender. No doubt the BOLOs had been updated by now-cops in three states would Be On the Look-Out for the red Caddy. They’d have choppers out, dogs, the whole caboodle-and lord knows he wished them luck. But Maxwell had eluded the authorities successfully before. He had a talent for it that bordered on genius, and more than his share of luck. If he made it to ground with all that cash, there was no telling how long he could evade capture.

That’s where Irene Cogan came in. She was Pender’s ace in the hole. Between the two of them, they knew more about Maxwell and Lily than anyone else alive-their histories, habits, and psychological profiles, their likes and needs, their dislikes and aversions-so it stood to reason they had a better chance of predicting the direction and object of their flight.

Another twenty minutes went by, then thirty. The kitchen phone rang; Pender snatched it off the hook. But it was only Marti Reynolds from The People’s Posse show. She was hoping that in light of recent developments Pender wouldn’t mind doing a supplementary interview to discuss the latest murders. He told her he was kind of busy at the moment, asked her to call him back on Monday.

“Of course,” she said. “By the way, do you have any other numbers for Dr. Cogan? I’ve been trying to reach her all afternoon, but I keep getting her voice mail.”

That makes two of us, sister, thought Pender. “No, sorry. If I do see her, I’ll tell her you called.”

It’s probably nothing, he told himself, pacing the tiny kitchen. Mountain out of a molehill. She’s out shopping, or jogging down by the rec trail. Or maybe she’s with a patient or taking a nap-you just assumed the car wasn’t in the garage.

But assumed was a dirty word to a graduate of the FBI Academy, retired or not. He grabbed his madras sport coat and a powder-blue Pebble Beach golf cap on the way out the door, and walked the three blocks to Irene’s place.

Cogan’s garage jutted out from the corner of the house, leaving only fifteen feet of driveway between the garage door and the street-a common enough arrangement in space-starved Pacific Grove. Tall as he was, Pender still had to rise up on tiptoe to peek through one of the narrow, horizontal windows set high in the garage door. At first he saw only his reflection. Cupping his hand over his eyes to block the glare, he pressed his nose against the cold glass. The garage was dark, but not so dark he couldn’t make out the outlines of the car inside.

Now, in his day, Pender had seen some truly awful sights. Mutilated corpses, severed heads stacked like cannonballs, that sort of thing. This was only a car in a garage. Nothing world-shattering about that-other than the fact that it wasn’t Irene Cogan’s new Infiniti, it was Mick MacAlister’s Cadillac.

He tried the handle of the garage door: locked. He tried Irene’s front door: ditto. Out of habit, he started to reach for his wallet-in the old days Pender had always kept a little jimmy in there for occasions such as this. But in those days, he’d also packed a badge-carrying one around without the other was a misdemeanor in all fifty states.

A narrow cement walk led around the side of the garage to Irene’s office in back. The office door was locked, and the kitchen curtains drawn, but the horizontal sliding window that ventilated the downstairs half-bath was wide open. Irene often kept it open-not only was it six feet above ground, and scarcely large enough to admit a full- grown adult, but if memory served, there had been a fixed screen there as well.

There was no screen now, though, and lying a few feet away, overturned in the flower bed bordering Irene’s back fence, was a sturdy plastic recycling bin Maxwell could easily have used as a stepstool. He came in through the bathroom window, chimed in that irrepressible, and often annoying, little jukebox in Pender’s head.