Donovan blinked. Looked at Waxman.
Waxman was frowning again. “Thought I lost you there for a minute. You okay?”
No, Donovan almost told him, I’m very far from okay. Something strange is brewing in your old buddy’s brain.
But he held back, knowing that Waxman’s reaction was bound to be less than sympathetic. Sucking in a breath, he returned his attention to the Polaroids.
The next couple shots showed more of the same, culminating in the expected conclusion. Then the scene shifted.
The last three photos were part of the set they’d found in Gunderson’s train car: typical tourist shots of Sara standing in front of the Lake Point Lighthouse.
The final photo featured all three of them smiling for the camera, Sara, Luther, and Gunderson, arm in arm, taken by an unknown photographer.
Donovan stared at Luther’s image for a long moment, then shifted his gaze to the camera atop the dresser. He’d lay odds it was the same one used to snap Jessie’s picture. Which meant that Luther and Gunderson had been in contact since the kidnapping.
“He’s the link, Sidney. He knows where she’s buried.”
“You don’t have to convince me,” Waxman said.
39
Wake up, Jessie.
Jessie… wake uhhh-up.
… Jessie?
Jessie opened her eyes, stared into the darkness. Every time she drifted away like that it got harder and harder to come back. Sleep always tugged at her, dragging her eyelids shut, making it soooo easy to give up and let the dreams take over.
This last time, she and Lisa Simpson had been playing hopscotch on the sidewalk in front of Lisa’s house, while Bart watched them from an upstairs window. Jessie had felt uncomfortable under Bart’s gaze, but Lisa had told her not to sweat it.
“He’s just jealous,” she’d said. “Nobody wants his key chain.”
Then the angel called to her and Jessie woke up.
She lay there, thinking of the dream, feeling the angel’s warmth soak through her body and shield her from the cold of the box.
Without the angel she’d be dead. Jessie was sure of it.
Her protector. Her savior. That’s what the angel was. Always pulling her back from the brink whenever she drifted off too far. Because if she drifted off too far, she’d never come back.
Ever.
At first, the angel was nothing but a voice. A sweet, melodic whisper that filled her dreams, telling her not to give up. Help was coming.
“I know it looks bad,” the angel sang, “but the glass is half full, Jessie. That’s something you always have to remember. You’re Jessie Glass-Half-Full.”
The voice grew stronger over time, louder, but no less melodic. A sweetness that soothed the soul.
But this time, it was more than just a voice. Jessie had seen a face to go with it.
She was playing with Lisa, worrying about Bart, when the sky grew dark and a full moon lit up the street and a face appeared on the side of the moon, a pale but beautiful young woman with melancholy eyes.
Wake up, Jessie.
Jessie… wake uhhh-up.
Jessie had stared at her, thinking, I’ve seen you before. Where have I seen you?
Then her eyes opened and the face was gone, and the darkness of the box spilled into her consciousness and she was once again alone and frightened and wanting to cry, but at the same time feeling that she wasn’t alone, that the angel was watching over her.
Glass half full, Jessie thought. Glass half full.
Then she remembered where she’d seen the angel’s face, and she knew, with irrefutable certainty, that everything would be all right. The glass wasn’t just half full, it was filled to the brim and spilling over. Two, three, four glasses couldn’t contain the optimism that flowed through her veins.
But as soon as she thought this, Jessie Glass-Half-Empty reared her ugly head again like some horror-movie demon who can’t be killed. No matter how many times you strike her down, she rises up, over and over, stronger and more determined than ever.
Don’t waste your energy, kid. Hope is for fools.
Nobody’s gonna find you, not way down here. There’s only so much oxygen in those tanks and sooner or later it’ll all be gone and then what are you gonna do? Huh?
You’re gonna die, that’s what.
Die, die, die.
Hell… you’re already dead.
40
Donovan and Waxman were coming out of Luther’s bedroom when Darcy Payne approached, a sour look on her face. She nodded toward the open front door. “We’ve got company.”
A government-issue sedan sat outside, a quartet of suits emerging from it. In the lead were Alan Doyle, Donovan’s immediate superior, and Joe Robledo, head of the local Field Division. Robledo rarely left his desk, and his presence here was nothing but bad news.
“Oh, Jesus,” Donovan said, thinking of Jessie.
“Easy, Jack,” Waxman said. “It’s not what you think. I called them.”
Donovan turned. “You?”
“We’ve been keeping the lines open ever since you went off the bridge. They insisted.”
It was a standard enough request, but bypassing Donovan was a blatant breach of protocol. Donovan was the task force leader.
Waxman raised his hands in defense. “You didn’t have time for their bullshit, remember?”
Not then and not now, Donovan thought. But for Waxman to go behind his back like this was disconcerting at best. How much had he told them?
Donovan felt like a bug under a magnifying lens, and the heat was rising.
Sensing his discomfort, Waxman nodded toward the approaching quartet. The two in the rear were unknowns, probably from Washington. “They just want to talk,” Waxman said. “Get a reading on the situation.”
“Sure,” Donovan told him. “That’s why they came all the way out here. To talk.”
Robledo was the spokesman, and like many agents at his level of command, he was an officious, smarmy prick. “First, Jack, let me say how sorry we are about this whole situation.”
It was clear to Donovan that they already thought Jessie was a lost cause. They’d never admit this, of course, not even to each other, but it was in their eyes, and in the tone of their voices. The twenty-four hour mark had officially passed, and everyone knew what that meant.
Donovan resented them for it.
No, scratch that.
