shows up white against the singed flesh.
“A few minutes later Kidder drove away and I started to run back into the house-I was going to call 911-and that’s when the house exploded.”
Some sort of incendiary device had been detonated-possibly something as simple as a natural gas line-and Kathy had fled through the open gate before the fire engines arrived, and made her way down the beach to the next big oceanfront estate where, miracle of miracles-she took it as a sign from God-she had found a silver Volkswagen Beetle in the garage of an unoccupied mansion, the ignition keys hanging on a hook inside the garage door, and she had driven the miracle car into Boston and found him where he lay in his hospital bed, the only man in the world who could help her put things right.
Shane is not a man of faith, not her kind of faith anyhow, with its certainty of heaven, but he knows that whatever is keeping this woman alive depends on recovering Joey Keener. Not because she intends to keep him-the only child she has ever wanted is the one she can no longer have-but because she needs to return the boy to his rightful mother, restoring balance to the world, and that portion of her soul that has been torn from her by grief.
He’s got a few things he wants to even up, too. After that there will be time enough to treat physical maladies like burned arms and ankles bruised by tearing away electronic monitors. Bodies heal with time. Souls require something else again.
“There’s a Best Buy at the mall,” he tells her. “First exit off the traffic circle. Buy the cheapest laptop they have in stock. Just make sure it has Wi-Fi. I’d do it myself but I’m, ah, more noticeable.”
There will be a manhunt under way, he’s sure of that. His description and image will already be circulating, but there’s a chance that she hasn’t yet been connected to his escape. It’s a chance they’ll have to take.
“I’ll have to use my card,” she warns him, standing up. “We’re out of cash.”
“The card will be fine. By the time it’s posted you’ll be out of the mall, back on the road. If the owners weren’t in residence at that estate you stumbled into, there’s a good chance the car hasn’t been reported as stolen yet. There’s nothing to connect you to the vehicle.”
“But they’ll know we’re here, in this area. The card will tell them.”
“They’ll already know that much. If the cops haven’t figured it out, Naomi Nantz has. Whatever happens will be in the next twenty-four hours. That’s all we need. One last day.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
When the whole thing blew up with my fake husband-not that I knew he was fake at the time-I had to resort to sleeping pills. There was no way I could run the office of a busy dental practice without sufficient sleep, and no way I could stop the mad whirl of self-recrimination in my head whenever it hit the pillow, not without assistance from those helpful little pills. Fortunately the brand my doctor prescribed were not physically addictive, but even so I’m not really a pill popper by nature, and threw away the bottle soon after taking the job with Naomi and moving into the residence. Something about the 1200-thread-count bedding must have worked, because I’m almost always able to sleep, no matter how tense and involving the case.
Not tonight. I know it without even trying. And there’s no way I’m going to take a pill and risk being groggy in the morning. So that’s why I’m once again wandering around the residence after midnight, still fully dressed, and wishing I could take a stroll around the block to settle my nerves. That’s not a possibility, not with half the Boston cops and probably the FBI parked outside our door. A nighttime tour of the residence always involves a visit to Naomi’s Zen garden, which exudes peace even to us nonbelievers. The cool shadows of the room, with its vaulted ceiling and subdued lighting, have always appealed, even if I would never dare draw a rake through the sand like Naomi is doing at the very moment I enter, aware that I’m intruding on her privacy.
“Join me,” she says.
“You’re raking,” I say. “That means you’re thinking.”
Her shoulders lift. “I’m always thinking. This is just another way of getting there. Sit, relax.”
I sit. Relaxing is not an option.
“Meditation might help,” she suggests.
“No, thank you.”
“I wasn’t offering to teach you. Although I could put you in touch with an excellent instructor.”
I turn to her, puzzled. “Don’t you mean like a monk or something?”
She chuckles softly. “I’m not a Buddhist, Alice. But I do find meditation useful, and I have great respect for certain aspects of the religion.”
“Oh,” I say, flummoxed. Just when I think I know what she’s thinking, it turns out she’s thinking something else. “What aspects?”
Naomi is considering her reply when a window explodes.
We’re both on our feet almost before the sound stops echoing. There was no gunshot, only the sound of bullet-resistant glass shattering, pretty much exactly as it did the night before, and I’m up and running, heading upstairs because that’s where the safe room is located, and there’s nothing like the noise of high-powered ammo to make you want a nice safe place to hide.
I’m not the first to arrive. That would be Mrs. Beasley, arrayed this evening in an ankle-length dressing gown. She says not a word, but her expression communicates a sense of disgust, that such an inconvenience could be allowed to occur two nights in a row.
“Teddy!” Naomi shouts behind me. “To the safe room. Follow the drill, please. The alarms have already sounded.”
“It was Jack’s room again,” Teddy says, clearly terrified. “But he’s here this time.”
“I’ll check on Jack. Alice, you get Ming-Mei.”
Our Chinese visitor has been given the largest of the guest accommodations. I pound on the door and call her name but there is no reply, so I have to use the pass key and let myself in. It’s way less than a minute since the glass shattered and the alarms went off, but it seems much, much longer.
As I wake Ming-Mei in her bed she sits up befuddled-apparently she does not share my reluctance for sleeping pills-and she has to remove the foam earplugs from her ears before I can make myself understood.
“We may be under attack. Follow me, please.”
She has the good sense not to ask questions and follows, wearing only a light T-shirt that seems to emphasize her diminutive size. Approaching the safe room at a run-our international guest is fleet of foot-I’m greatly relieved to see Jack Delancey standing there, big as life.
“Hit the ceiling, just like last time,” he’s telling Naomi. “Had to be fired from ground level. Lucky for me I wasn’t looking out the window.”
“Indeed,” says Naomi. “Everybody in, quickly!”
But when the door to the safe room is shut, bolts engaged, and I finally have time to take a breath and count heads, Jack is not among us. And when I insist that the door be opened and he be admitted, Naomi insists otherwise. “Jack will take care of Jack. He’s very competent when it comes to self-defense. He’s very competent, period, as you must know.”
“What’s going on?” I demand. “Why did we violate protocol?”
Naomi holds up her hand, calling for silence. “Leave it for now,” she says softly. “When the all clear comes, as it soon will, it is crucial that none of us mention that Jack remained outside this room after the alarm sounded.”
So we wait. A minute or two passes. I can’t help noticing Teddy noticing Ming-Mei in her little thin T-shirt. Noticing the astonishingly beautiful woman the way a starving man notices a T-bone steak grilling on the other side of a restaurant window. Because poor Teddy knows he’s on the other side of the glass, at least I hope he does.
After five minutes or so a green light blinks, indicating the all clear from Beacon Security. At a nod from boss lady I release the magnetic bolts on the heavy steel door and swing it open. The Beacon Security chief nods politely,
