Good Morning, Killer

currents lurched within my body, pitching like the tide; first calm, then whirling violent images of revenge.

A quiet ringing stirred like the wind chimes overhead. It took a moment to understand it was the Nextel, stuck inside the pocket of my robe, muffled by layers of terry cloth and quilt. Voice mail had already been activated by the time I dug it out.

“Um, hi, um, it’s me, and I was wondering if—”

“Juliana?” I cut in, puzzled.

“Oh my God! Did I wake you up? Oh my God! I thought this was your office —”

“No, no, not at all. I always get up when it’s still dark.”

“So do I.”

“You do?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I just wake up.”

“How come?”

“Usually a nightmare.”

“Did you have a nightmare tonight?”

Juliana hesitated. “This is stupid.”

“Nothing is stupid. Things just happen,” I told her. “I’ve been having nightmares, too.”

“Really? That is so amazing.”

“Daytime nightmares, you know?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sure you do.”

There was silence. I gripped the phone, as if behind the pale beige curtains everyone else was dead and Juliana my last connection to the living world.

“What did you want to talk to me about?”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me.”

“Really. Nothing. I was just chilling, watching some dumb movie on TV, I don’t even know what it’s about.”

“How’s school?”

“I stopped going. I hate that school.”

“What do you do?”

“Stay home and watch TV.”

“Juliana, can I ask you something personal? Are you still seeing the therapist?”

“Yes, I’m seeing the therapist.”

“How is she?”

“She’s pretty tight.”

“Okay. That’s good.”

Then there was another silence. “So,” she ventured, “is it still dark where you are?”

“Yes. It’s dark.”

“Do you know when the sun’s going to come up?”

“Well, it’s coming. You can be sure of that. Do I know when? You mean, like, what exact time?”

Her voice had become just about inaudible. “How long.”

“Hold it. Let me look.”

She heard me getting up and panicked. “Where are you going?”

“Just getting the paper.”

“What for?”

“They have it in the paper every day. Sunup, sundown, when the moon comes out, high tide …”

With the phone still to my ear I unlocked the door and lifted the LA Times off the mat. At this hour the corridor seemed cold and unfamiliar as a hotel. I was glad to turn back to the warm stillness of the apartment.

“Here it is. The sun will rise at five-twenty-three a.m. Not so long to go.”

Juliana didn’t answer.

“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “You look out of your window, and I’ll look out of my window, and we’ll see who sees the sunrise first.”

“Okay.” She seemed to come to life. “The first time we see even the tiniest drop of sun—”

“The first.”

“—it counts.”

We agreed. The smallest, faintest ray of light would count.

I stayed with Juliana until dawn, when she finally became sleepy and said she was going to bed. I wished her good night even though I was about to start my day. It would not be the last time Juliana called in the secret hours of the early morning. But instead of inputting a transcript into Rapid Start, I erased the voice mail recording and kept our conversations private; held them and treasured and stroked them like the tolerant stuffed loon.

Now a different portrait dominated the investigation. We had received the marine corps photo ID of Richard Brennan. A color copy looked out at the war room, another was pinned up on my bathroom door with inked-in donkey ears, just so I could look at the bastard every day and tell him, “We will cut your heart out.” The photograph was not dissimilar to the composite, which showed short dark hair and a strong neck. Now you could see the power in the face came from the high forehead and big jaw, which conveyed a solid, all-American arrogance, like a college football player from the fifties. You expected him to be wearing a white crew sweater. The nose was pert and the mouth compressed as if he were biding his important time — I’ll stand here and let you take my picture — while the eyes half closed in drowsy contempt, as if this world were beneath consideration. Or maybe that was just the way the flash went off.

Ray Brennan fit the profile — husky, good-looking, overconfident. With longer hair and a softer attitude you understood how he could unhinge a girl like Juliana: a diamond blade slicing through a rooftop door, a knife through butter.

Instantly my range of contact expanded like a radar field to include State College, Pennsylvania, where, according to the records, Richard (Ray) Brennan was born. My working day was taken up with faxes and phone calls to Quantico and the Philadelphia field office, trying to figure out which of the cool businesslike voices I could trust with my baby, then working to get everybody on the same page with respect to the most efficient way of obtaining information. Another timeline was begun, a trail through time, that would detail the moves of Brennan’s life — lead us west to Tempe, Arizona, through the mirror maze of his psyche, to a bench on a Promenade three blocks from the Pacific Ocean, and finish at that trailer park or ratty little house in whatever mean and shabby sprawl, where we would, inevitably, take him down.

I just can’t sleep.”

“I know, Juliana.”

“What time does the sun rise?”

“Five-forty-four. But it sets at seven-ten. The days are getting longer. What are you doing?”

“Painting my nails.”

“What color?”

“Mango Ice.”

As the identity of the prime suspect came into focus, I felt myself emerging from the emotional commotion of the kidnap to the clarity of the hunt. Every day brought exhilarating twists you knew would slam into an unexpected climax — the shocking waterfall at the end of the ride. For example, we had the stats on every 1989