Flight

term, but in her heart she had never stopped loving Trent Randolph and considered herself a widow. She continued her planned speech, ending by skillfully reminding the assembled reporters that her son, heir to the Randolph Chemicals fortune, would become one of the wealthiest young men in Southern California when he reached his majority. He could almost feel her distress whenever Polly asked her camera operator to get a shot of anyone else, especially him.

Lefebvre despised Tory, but over the last three weeks he had carefully hidden that. He had not been so successful at hiding it from Seth, who he thought sensed it and sympathized with him. Seth, he had come to realize, was an excellent observer. Lefebvre was the person most often in his company, and Seth hadn’t hesitated to study him, picking up on nuances of his behavior to a degree that was at times unnerving to the detective, who was much more used to being observer than observed.

The formal portion of the conference ended, but Polly Logan and some of the others asked Tory to pose with the newly appointed Homicide Division captain — Captain Bredloe — as well as the members of the police commission.

The doctors and a few reporters left, but there was still a crowd in the room. Most were from the PD — Willis and two other lieutenants, as well as a few uniforms, a couple of guys from the crime lab, and several detectives — including Hitch and Rosario.

Something was happening between him and Rosario, he admitted to himself. Not surprisingly, Seth had picked up on that, too. Now proficient at utilizing the special equipment that allowed him to type on the computer without using his fingers, Seth had urged Lefebvre to ask her out. Maybe he would. He was not living here, in Seth’s room, as he had during those first two weeks, but he still spent many hours at a time at the young man’s bedside. He found he rarely thought of Seth as a boy now, although just this moment, while others laughed and talked around him without actually talking to him, Lefebvre thought he looked more fragile than usual.

Lefebvre had done his best to stay in the background during this press conference, but in recent days the media had made much of his role in the rescue of Seth and in the case against Whitey Dane. Some of his coworkers resented it, made a play on the sound of his name and called him “The Fave” — not in a complimentary way. Their resentment made some aspects of his work difficult, but otherwise, it didn’t bother him much. Others from the department, people who would not normally have had much to do with him, now sought him out. Most of that was, he knew, strictly political — a desire to be seen with the golden boy of the moment — and all of it sickened him.

Turning his back on them, he moved toward Seth, who was clearly wearing down — Seth still tired easily, a result, the doctors said, of having lost so much blood on the night of the attack. In one bandaged hand, he was cradling a rubber ball his physical therapist had given him, barely able to curl the hand around it. Even so, he weakly squeezed it, doing his best to regain strength in his fingers.

Seeing Lefebvre approach, Seth smiled. There was a knowing look in his eyes, one that said he knew Lefebvre was displeased with all the hoopla.

It was at that moment that the alarm on someone’s watch played a little tune. It was shut off almost as soon as it sounded.

Seth’s already pale face lost all color — the look in his eyes became one of sheer terror. The ball dropped to the floor. Lefebvre hurried to his side.

“Easy,” he said, but this time Seth would not be soothed. Lefebvre saw a kind of desperation in him that had not been there since his first days in the hospital — the way he looked when he awakened from nightmares. “Seth, it’s all right.”

Seth shook his head, reached out to hold on to Lefebvre.

“What’s wrong?” Tory asked. “What’s wrong with him?”

Television cameras and lights turned toward the bed, and Polly Logan repeated the question, in a less frantic tone.

Fear, Lefebvre thought. “A little too much excitement,” he said. “Perhaps it would be best if we let Seth rest.”

“Detective Lefebvre is right,” Captain Bredloe said. “We need to let the boy have a chance to recover. I’m sure everyone here understands that Seth’s health must be our first concern.”

Lefebvre’s respect for the new captain increased when Bredloe suited action to word and courteously herded almost everyone out of the room, including Polly. Irene moved a little more slowly, watching Lefebvre and Seth with open curiosity. She met Lefebvre’s eyes and seemed to realize that if she pushed to stay around now, she’d anger him — and risk losing future cooperation from him. He was glad she didn’t say anything to him as she left. It would have only increased some of the friction he was encountering in the office, and Polly would have complained about unfair access for the Express.

Rosario, under Hitch’s watchful eye, didn’t look back at Lefebvre as she left. Even Tory Randolph found herself gently escorted away on the captain’s reassuring arm.

Lefebvre reached up, smoothing Seth’s hair in a calming gesture. “Better now?”

Seth still seemed frightened, but he nodded, turning to the computer. Lefebvre moved to read the screen:

He was here just now. In this room.

“Who?”

The killer.

“Whitey Dane?”

Seth shook his head and typed furiously.

No. Wrong man.

Lefebvre wondered briefly if this was some sort of setback brought on by the excitement of the day, but when he looked back into Seth’s eyes, he saw the young man’s need to be believed. “Tell me more,” he said.

Seth looked relieved and began typing again:

Doremi.