recitation.
“And we wait for him to kill someone else, and hope that next time he makes a mistake.”
Blakemoor nodded, but said nothing. The silence between them stretched on until finally Anne could take it no longer.
“What if it’s me?” she asked, rising to her feet. “What if it’s me he kills, or one of my family?”
Without even thinking about what he was doing, Mark Blakemoor put his arms around Anne. “It won’t be you,” he said. “I won’t let it be.”
Struggling against an almost overpowering urge to cling to the big detective — even if just for a moment — Anne pulled away from him and picked up her coat and her large leather satchel. They left the medical examiner’s office in silence.
Neither of them could think of anything else to say.
CHAPTER 43
Glen Jeffers knew something was wrong the moment he woke up that morning. It was a feeling that flooded not only his brain, but his body as well — a feeling that although he was wide-awake, his mind was only half conscious; that although he’d slept through the night, his body was still exhausted. How could he possibly be so tired when he hadn’t done much of anything except rest since coming home from the hospital?
The reality was that he was just plain bored. He’d spent his life being active, rising early for his morning jogs with Anne, putting in long days at the office — days that were often broken only by a fierce lunchtime game of racquetball with Alan Cline — then coming home to work in the evening at the drafting table in the den, or, if it was summer and the evenings long, going up to the park to throw a ball around with Kevin.
What he wasn’t used to was inactivity, and this morning, after Anne and the kids had finally left, the house had begun to close in around him. Part of it, he reflected as he set about cleaning up the kitchen, was simply cabin fever. But there was more to it than that. It seemed to him that everything was getting tangled up in his mind. Just before he’d come fully awake this morning, he’d had a dream — one of those half-waking dreams in which you are unpleasantly aware that you’re dreaming, but are powerless to stop the unwelcome images parading before you.
This one had been a jumble of scenes: Joyce Cottrell, and Kumquat, and Mark Blakemoor staring at him as though the detective thought he’d killed not only his daughter’s cat, but his next door neighbor as well. By the time Glen came fully awake, he felt as surrounded by death and violence as he had when Anne was spending so much of her time on the Richard Kraven story.
That was another thing that was starting to get to him. The whole Kraven thing should have ended when the killer was executed, but it seemed to be rising up all over again. Anne was already looking for a connection between Kraven and the two new killings, and if he knew Anne, she’d find one, no matter how implausible it might seem.
Finished in the kitchen, Glen wandered into the den: maybe he’d just spend a few minutes at the drawing board, not working, really, but just sketching and thinking, seeing if any new ideas came to him. Before he even reached his drafting table, however, his eye was caught by the thick file on Anne’s desk.
The Richard Kraven file — the one he’d made Kevin bring to him when he was still in the hospital.
Why had he done that? Now, he couldn’t even remember having read the stuff. He leafed through a few pages of the file, but none of the articles struck him as something he’d read recently. And he certainly wasn’t interested in reading the pieces this morning.
The mood of restless boredom that had been gathering around him since the moment he’d awakened coalesced into an oppressive claustrophobia. Suddenly he had to get out of the house, had to escape the confines of walls that suddenly seemed to be closing in on him. But where should he go?
A walk?
Forget it. Despite his promise to Gordy Farber, he’d always hated walking just for the sake of walking. What he needed was a destination to give the exercise purpose.
The office?
Forget that, too. If he so much as showed up there, Rita Alvarez would not only send him home, but call Anne, too.
But what about the Jeffers Building? He hadn’t been to the construction site since his heart attack. A quick look at its progress, he thought now, would be the perfect antidote for his mood, and unless Alan happened to be there, no one on the job would even know about Farber’s orders that he stay away from work. His mind made up, Glen pulled on a jacket against the chill of the overcast morning, locked the house, and set out.
A little less than an hour later he was standing on the sidewalk across the street from the soaring skeleton of the Jeffers Building. Even the quickest glance told him that the work was on schedule despite his not being there to supervise it. He felt a twinge of insecurity that they seemed not to need him at all, but then decided the signs of progress were actually something of a tribute — obviously, he and the huge design team working under him had done a good enough job that Jim Dover hadn’t needed to call him.
The building — his building — drew him like a magnet. Crossing the street, he let himself through the door in the fence around the site, and headed for the office, a large trailer that would become unnecessary as soon as the ground floor had been enclosed and could be properly lit and heated. The young woman behind the desk, whose name was Janie Berkey, glanced up from the purchase orders she was working on, looked puzzled for a moment, then smiled.
“Mr. Jeffers!”
“Back among the land of the living,” Glen said. “Thought I’d have a look around. Jim here?”
“Mr. Dover won’t be on site until after lunch today,” Janie told him. “If you want to wait for him—”
“Actually, I’d just as soon poke around on my own a little.” Glen gave her a conspiratorial wink. “How can I find out what he’s doing wrong if I only see what he wants to show me?”
Janie’s eyes darkened. “Mr. Dover doesn’t have anything to hide,” she began, in a voice that made Glen wonder exactly how close a relationship the receptionist had with her boss. “He’s the most—”
“Joke!” Glen interrupted. “It was just a joke.”
Janie looked uncertain, then uttered a small laugh. Glen seized the opportunity to pick up a hard hat, put it on, and slip out of the office before she could insist on calling someone to escort him.
He spent a few minutes touring the ground floor, then climbed the temporary stairs to the mezzanine level. But even as he began inspecting the structure, he found himself being drawn toward the elevator.
What would happen if he went up?
Would the acrophobia that had overcome him the day he’d had his heart attack engulf him for a second time, or had his unexpected panic just been some kind of crazy fluke? As he stood in front of the metal cage considering the wisdom of going higher up in the structure, the elevator clanged to a stop and one of the workmen looked at him inquiringly.
“Great to have you back, Mr. Jeffers,” he said, with a wide smile. “You going up?”
Glen hesitated, then made up his mind. It was like falling off a horse, he decided. If he didn’t get on the elevator right now, and conquer the fear that had nailed him a couple of weeks ago, he might never be able to overcome it at all. “Thanks,” Glen said. He stepped into the cage, the man closed the door, and a second later the machine came to life, rattling upward.
Instantly, Glen felt the first stirrings of apprehension in the pit of his belly. But he said nothing, determined that today the acrophobia would not get the better of him. As the machine continued to rise, Glen forced himself to look straight down, through the heavy grating of the elevator’s floor, to the steadily receding mass of concrete upon which the steel skeleton of the skyscraper stood.
With every floor they passed, with every twelve feet added to the distance of the drop, the queasiness in his stomach increased. Suddenly the elevator jerked to a stop, and Glen felt a moment of pure terror.
Stuck! They were stuck! Trapped. A wild desperation seized him, blood pounding in his ears. He heard the workman’s voice distantly.
