bullet of pure misery, fusing with the grief that has festered there so long. My hands fly up to cover my ears, but the scream smashes into a black wall, leaving only a ringing vibration in the air. The goggle eyes above me go wide, then vanish, and a human face appears in their place.
John Kaiser’s face.
He thinks I’m dead. I see it in his eyes. The fog has almost swallowed me. I have to tell him I’m alive. If I don’t, he might bury me. Deep in my mind, a spark winks to life. A lone pinpoint of white in a black sky. And from that star comes a voice. Not my father’s voice. A woman’s voice.
My sister’s voice.
Two syllables fall from my lips with eerie clarity, and they trigger a burst of frantic activity. The word I say is “Sugar.” Then I slap my wrist.
A white-clad angel bends over me. “I think she wants us to check her glucose level.”
Then the star winks out, and John’s face vanishes.
28
“Jordan? Jordan?”
White light spears my retinas, but I endure the pain. I don’t want the dark. Anything but that.
“Jordan? Wake up.”
A shadow floats over my eyes, shielding them. A hand. After a moment, the hand pulls back and a face leans in.
John’s face. It’s creased with worry, and his eyes are red with fatigue.
“Do you know me?” he asks.
“Agent Kaiser. Right?”
The worry doesn’t leave his face.
“I told you, John, I’m not a china vase.”
“Thank God.”
“Wheaton?”
John shakes his head. “He ran screaming into the hall when you were down. He had a gun. It was turned around in his hand, like a club. I shouted for SWAT not to fire, but by then someone had. He was killed instantly.”
“CK,” I whisper.
“What?”
“Clean kill.”
“Oh.”
Turning my head, I see that I’m lying on a table in what looks like an ER treatment room. There’s an IV running into my arm. I have to fight the urge to rip it out.
“Where are we?”
“Charity Hospital. Your blood sugar’s back to normal. The doctors say you’re dehydrated, but they’re fixing that now. Their main worry was your brain.”
“That’s always been my worry, too.”
“Jordan.”
“I feel like I have a bad hangover. That’s all, really.”
“Physically. But what about inside?”
John’s eyes are steady but somber. “She was probably in that coma within an hour or two after being taken. Once she evaded surveillance and Hoffman got her, there was nothing we could have done.”
I nod. “Where was I?”
“Four blocks from Wheaton’s house on Audubon Place. Five blocks from St. Charles Avenue. One block from Tulane.”
“Jesus, they had some nerve. What’s happening there now?”
He gives me a hard look. “Are you sure you want to know?”
“Yes.”
“They’ve taken two corpses from shallow graves under a crawl space.”
“Jane’s?”
“No IDs yet. We’re in the process of gathering all the victims’ families at a hotel. We’re going to proceed very slowly on the exhumations. We don’t want any mistakes.”
“I understand. Wheaton told me the New York victims are buried in a clearing on the family farm in Vermont.”
John nods as though not surprised. “We’re already working on paperwork up there. That farm is mostly a commercial district now. Big deal to start poking random holes in search of bodies.”
“I don’t want to stay here tonight.”
“The doctors want to keep you.”
“I don’t care. You’re the FBI. Do something about it.”
He takes a deep breath, then lays his hand on my arm. “Listen, there’s something you’re going to want to know.”
“What?” I ask, my throat tight with fear.
“We just got a message from Marcel de Becque.”
“What?”
“An invitation, really.”
“What do you mean?”
“He wants to talk to you. In person.”
“De Becque’s here? In the U.S.?”
“No. He wants to see you at his house. In the Caymans. He says he’ll send his jet if you need it.”
“Do I need it?”
“No. There are still serious questions in this case, and only de Becque can answer them now. Baxter says we can take the Bureau jet. ”
“When?”
“When you’re strong enough.”
“For a two-hour flight? Tell them to get the plane ready. And go handle the doctors. I don’t want to deal with that.”
John looks at me like a parent who knows his child will not take no for an answer. Then he squeezes my shoulder, bends, and kisses me on the forehead.
“I guess we’re taking a trip.”
Grand Cayman lies like an emerald on the Caribbean, smooth and flat after the mountains of Cuba. Our pilot lands the Lear at the airport near Georgetown, but this time there’s no pair of escorts waiting with a Range Rover. At the FBI Director’s request, the governor of the islands has provided state transportation, a black limousine flying the Caymanian flag from its fenders. Our native driver speaks with a crisp British accent, and he loses no time shepherding us to de Becque’s colonial estate on North Bay.
The door is answered by Li, who stands with the same self-possession I noticed the first time we were
