Morgan rules — the family must survive. They had ways to talk, ways to pass messages without talking, but they'd never give their enemy a chance to frag the whole heart of the clan with one grenade. Even if they had to make up a strike team, they'd hit different targets.
Ben shivered and rubbed his eyes, clearing sudden fog from his head. He wasn't getting enough sleep. He made bad decisions when things rushed him like this, but a bad decision could be better than no decision.
The family must survive. He had to do it. Ben gritted his teeth, climbed the weary flights of worn granite steps curving around and around through damp musty darkness, and opened the heavy oak door out onto the tower battlements once more. Bright sun made him squint again, increasing his frown. He pulled out a cheap cell phone. He punched in a number from memory — his, not the phone's.
Two electronic buzzes, and then a voice. "Cleaning Services."
Get it over with. "This is Mid-Town Management. I need a cleaning crew. Six seven Oak Street, Naskeag Falls, basement apartment. Bare walls, everything to SERC. We don't expect the tenant to show up, but if she does, keep her quiet. If you see her boyfriend, back off. Got it?"
The voice came back, flat business tone of an everyday transaction. "Thorough cleanup, basement apartment at sixty-seven Oak Street, Naskeag Falls. Contents to the incinerator. Don't argue with the tenant, avoid the boyfriend. What about the other residents?"
"Just doing your job. Identify them, then ignore them."
"Got it. Scheduled for this afternoon." And the line clicked dead.
By tonight, Jane White's apartment would be the next thing to sterile — no furniture, no papers, no fingerprints, no hairs, no bedding with copious splashes of Gary's DNA smeared into the sheets. By tomorrow night, everything from that apartment would be stack gas at the Sunrise Energy Recovery Company plant, generating a few watts of power for the grid.
Ben pulled the battery before sliding the cell phone back into his pocket. That number, that account, was now dead. Never used again. As dead as Jane White would be, if she showed up while the "cleaning crew" worked on her apartment. That's what "keep her quiet" meant. The silence of a grave somewhere out in the Maine woods. She might be armed and dangerous, but "Cleaning Services" were pros. Expensive, but worth every penny.
He didn't know which way he wanted this to turn out — that she'd stay vanished, or not. He'd really rather not have his son trying to kill him. Gary dead, though, that would be much worse. If that girl had just had the sense to wear gloves. Morgans could use another computer wizard, but not one that made mistakes.
Even children knew about fingerprints, dammit. And too many people connected to Jane ended up dead. Not just Tina and the foster-care couple, but others. Dan had found traces of at least three other street kids dead. God knows that was a rough life, Jane might not have been the cause, but . . . the Morgans must survive. He'd be as ruthless as that required. As ruthless as she seemed to be.
Ben turned back into the stairway, pulled the door shut behind him, set the heavy bar across it, and descended into darkness. He still had half the tunnel complex to check, and the weight of those grenades to remind him to be thorough. Then he'd pick up the carrying case with that Mayan flint on the way out. He could feel it calling to him, all the way up here. He wanted to touch it, hold it, dream it to life. Dreams. It woke in his dreams, moving, whispering, grinning fangs at him, remembering blood and sun. Wouldn't want the cops to get their hands on that.
He hoped Jane White wouldn't force him to make any more phone calls.
Chapter Thirteen
Alice jerked at a tuft of witch-grass, ignoring the stab of pain that answered from her back. Instead, she reached for another runner that had attempted to sneak away from the carnage and attack the garlic border. Then she settled back on her butt and surveyed the battlefield of her kitchen garden, bedding the herbs down for the winter. Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.
And witch-grass. Damned weed spread like a resistant staph-A infection. And about as hard to kill. Let it escape now and it would be twice as difficult to root out come spring.
Caroline should be weeding the garden. That's what healthy muscular young backs were made for. But the girl was off in Arizona and out of range of telephones. And pissed off at the House, on top of that. Simmering rebellion. Alice could recognize the symptoms — hell, she wrote the book herself, back at the same age.
A furry nose bumped her elbow. "Mrrrt?"
Alice wiped her hand on her jeans and scratched the cat. That's what humans were for, making life easier for cats. She stared down at the young calico.
"Three to one odds she doesn't come back before she graduates. The damned House pushed her just a bit too far, setting up that chowder. Sure, we needed it, but she could have used canned clams without committing sacrilege."
She paused and a brief smile twitched the corner of her mouth. "Plus the best young studs in this town are all her cousins. Or worse."
Atropos climbed into Alice's lap and started to purr. The quiet buzz blended well with Gregorian chants floating out from the House and the hum of bees in the still air. She plucked a sprig of thyme and rolled its pungency between her fingers, adding to the spell. The sun on her back helped, too.
And the witch-grass served as a target to discharge
