She faces forward again, as though watching for our driveway, which we could both find blindfolded if necessary. “No.”
“Erin wanted to tell him the truth, Drewe. That’s what she told me the day she died. She was planning to tell him that night. And she wanted me to tell you.”
She brushes a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Don’t you think she was going to tell because she felt she had no option? That if she didn’t, Patrick would leave her?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Erin seemed different that day. Like she’d grown into a different person. It made me ashamed of myself, really. She was totally committed to her decision.”
“Don’t tell me this, Harper.”
“I’m sorry. I just wanted you to know the whole truth.”
She turns to me, her green eyes burning. “The truth? I’ll tell you what the truth is. Patrick is a good man. A good father. Even during the craziness of the past few weeks, he hasn’t let Holly see anything. With Erin gone, his obsession is going to fade. You should see him. He’s latched onto that child like a life raft. I think he realizes how stupid he was to have wasted time badgering Erin about the past. Because now she’s gone. I don’t think he’ll waste any more.”
“So you’re saying-”
“I’m saying Patrick will never know about you and Erin. Neither will Holly. It will be harder on you than anybody, watching her grow up without knowing what you really are to her. But it has to be that way. You understand?”
I nod silently.
“For a while they’ll be close to us, to my parents. But Patrick will eventually remarry and they’ll drift away. It will hurt you. It will even hurt me. But that’s the way life is. And somewhere out in the world, a little piece of Erin and you will be alive. Long after we’re dead even.” Drewe looks away abruptly, and I realize she is hiding tears. “She’ll be okay, though. She comes from good people. Don’t miss the damned drive.”
I hit the brakes and wheel onto the gravel. As I pull around Drewe’s Acura and park, she says, “It’s settled, then?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Let’s pack the essentials and go.”
I am packing in my office when I notice the e-mail icon blinking beneath Nefertiti’s slowly turning head on the EROS computer. Dropping a can of shaving gel into my dopp kit, I stare at the icon. The sounds of Drewe packing in her bedroom echo up the hallway. Willing myself to be calm, I walk over and click the mouse on the icon. At the top of the message I see this:
SENDER: SYSOP/Edward Berkmann, M.D.
CHAPTER 46
Waiting for Miles to answer his cellular phone, I try desperately to remember whether my e-mail icon was blinking last night, whether I could possibly have missed it in the insanity of viewing Erin’s body or mopping up the blood. I don’t think so. Nor was it blinking this afternoon. This message arrived in the past hour, as its time stamp indicates. Still, with my breath coming shallow, I pray that Berkmann somehow planted the message for delayed delivery while in the house yesterday.
“Turner here.”
A cacophony of road noise threatens to drown Miles’s voice. He is obviously walking or riding down a street somewhere.
“It’s Harper. Berkmann may be alive.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I just got an e-mail message from him, via EROS.”
“Time stamped?”
“Thirty minutes ago.”
“What does it say?”
There’s a pause. “He could have sent that from his plane. Before it went down. What’s the alias?”
“None. It’s from SYSOP 1.”
“It can’t be!”
“Man, are you in denial or what?”
“Look, Berkmann got that last e-mail message into the system through an old toll access line on a backup server. I found it and closed it off. Maybe this is one of my assistants. Fucking with us for a joke.”
“Where’s Baxter, Miles? Can you contact him?”
“He’s still in Connecticut. The state police are canvassing homes in the area of the airstrip Berkmann used, looking for the killing house. You at home?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll call Baxter, call you right back.”
I don’t move a foot from the phone while I wait. From the noise coming up the hallway, Drewe is still wading through her drawers and closet. In less than two minutes Miles is back on the line.
“You’re right,” he says, his voice strangely muted. “Berkmann’s in the system right now. The son of a bitch is alive.”
“Jesus. I knew it.”
“The night he stole the master client list, he must have put a back door into the system. But he never used it. He knew the logs would catch him.”
“Never used it until now, you mean.”
“Right.”
“Can you trace him, Miles?”
“No. The FBI pulled their equipment off our switching system when we closed to clients, and the phone company won’t help me without the FBI.”
“So what do I do?”
“Log into the Blue Room and see what he wants.”
“Hell no!”
“Baxter agrees, Harper. Keep him on-line long enough to check for typos. If there aren’t any, at least we know he’s back on his voice-recognition system. Back in New York.”
“How could he have gotten back to New York?”
“Same way I got to Mississippi from Manhattan. Paying cash for air tickets. Hell, he could have ridden a Trailways up here by now. He could have stolen a plane down there. I’ll get Baxter to start checking that stuff.”
“I think he’s still down here, Miles.”
“Why?”
I relate the story of the sunglasses in Erin’s grave, but Miles puts about as much stock in it as Sheriff Buckner did.
“Just talk to him long enough to look for typos,” he says. “If he’s back in New York, we’ll have him.” His voice drops in volume. “Baxter’s wasting his time in Connecticut. The killing house is here, Harper. Somewhere close to the medical school. I’ve already found people who’ve seen Berkmann before. Washington Heights people. I’m on 169th Street right now.”
I hesitate. “Dr. Lenz said Drewe and I should split. Get somewhere safe.”
“Yeah? Where’s that?”
When I don’t answer, Miles says, “Safe for us is a function of Edward Berkmann no longer breathing. At some
