had no ill relatives, and she was hardly one for invasive charity. Also, if Lloyd had killed her, my brain tumor seemed something of a convenient fluke.
'What are the odds for a bone-marrow match?' I asked.
Big Brontell said, 'One in twenty thousand. Give or take. Of course, your pool is limited to people who submit to testing.'
'Are there any matches for Janice's type in the registry?' I asked. 'People who live in Los Angeles?'
'Lemme check.' The phone shifted noisily against Brontell's cheek, and then I could hear him breathing as he typed.
I dug through the manuscript furiously, checking my memory against twelve-point font: 'None of us matched.' Mrs. Broach waved a hand to encompass the three of them on the couch. 'But Kasey did. She was Tommy's angel. She went in time after time, shots in the hip, needle this thick, never complained, not once.'
I picture Kasey Broach's blue-tinted corpse, sprawled on the cracked asphalt beneath the freeway ramp: A nasty abrasion mottled her right hip. I racked my brain to recall if a similar scrape had been left on Genevieve in the same location. Wouldn't take much to skim away puncture marks from a cluster of needle perforations, to hide traces of the extractions under a glistening wound. Had I checked? Had anyone?
What had he said at our last good-bye? 'I'm sorry, Drew, but Janice and I have to look out for ourselves.'
Sorry, indeed.
He was no sadist, though he'd introduced a bondage rope to throw us off course. Sevoflurane to keep them alive and pliant. Xanax so they'd feel relatively calm should they breach consciousness a humane facet of an inhumane act. He wouldn't have wanted the victims to suffer any more than he wanted me to. He just wanted his wife to live, no matter the cost. Had he apologized to his victims as he had to me? Had he wept as he pressed the gas mask over their faces to still their thrashing? As he'd positioned the boning knife for the final plunge?
Big Brontell said, 'There are two matches in L.A.'
A held breath burned in my chest. I prayed silently. Let Genevieve's name be one of those two, making me innocent.
'Let's see,' Big Brontell said, with a deliberateness that made me want to scream. 'Kasey Broach, but she took her name off the active list.'
But it would've been a snap for Lloyd to get clearance to tap the bone-marrow database, to find matches present and past.
My voice sounded strangled. 'And the other?'
'Sissy Ballantine.'
I tilted my forehead into my hand, felt it slick and hot.
'She's listed as a sibling donor,' Big Brontell said. 'Transplant pending.'
So her marrow was being reserved for a brother or sister, which meant it wouldn't be made available for Janice. Which in turn meant Lloyd had to take the marrow forcibly from one of the two matches and kill her to cover his tracks. Kasey Broach, long inactive on the donor list and thus further afield of the clue trail, had been the wiser choice.
'Thank you very much, Brontell. I can't tell you '
'Hang on.' Then he shouted across the phone. 'Get the four-points and the Haldol!' Back to me: 'Gotta run, Drew-Drew. My girth is required on the psych unit.'
He disconnected, and I folded the phone and set it on the passenger seat.
When I looked up, Lloyd was at my window.
Chapter 42
Lloyd signaled me with one hand to roll down the window. His other arm was out of view, since he was standing half on the curb, bent beneath a wayward bough of the pepper tree. As I hit the switch, I kept my eyes on that hidden hand. From the flex of his arm, he was holding something. The cell phone was sleek and hard in my fist.
'Hey, Lloyd.'
A dated weave belt pinched his tan Dockers at the waist. His brickred Polo shirt he wore tucked in, though it had tugged free at one side from recent exertion. His wavy blond hair sparkled with sweat where it met his forehead and temples. 'Hello. What do you need?'
I gestured at the manuscript pages in my lap, giving myself an extra beat so my voice wouldn't reveal the adrenaline pounding through my veins. 'I came by to give it one more shot, see if you'd take a look at some pages for me. I was just reviewing '
He shifted, his arm moving, and I came within an instant of smashing his face with a Motorola-fortified fist. What swung into view, though, was not a weapon but a roll of silver electrical tape, which he spun absentmindedly around a finger.
'Drew, I'm just too overwhelmed right now. I can't help you. Or see you. This is a really bad time. An impossible time.'
For all the heinousness of his actions, he was speaking the truth. He certainly looked overwhelmed, worn down by grief and dismay. As if his panic bell had been rung so often so he no longer registered the clangor inside his head. Like me he'd arrived here by desperation, choosing the less awful of two scenarios. From his face I'd say he'd had his share of second thoughts.
'Right. Okay. Sorry to bug you.' I tugged the gearshift into drive. 'See you later.'
'See you, Drew,' he said softly.
I pulled away, watching him in the rearview. He stood on the curb, staring after me, then started for the house, his shoulders stooped as though his thoughts were pulling him downward.
I turned the corner, pulled over, and dialed. 'Detective Unger, please.'
A few moments later, Cal picked up.
'It's Drew. I'm around the corner from Lloyd Wagner's house. I need you to get here now and bring the guns. Lloyd's got a Volvo with the right dent, repainted in brown. His wife has leukemia. There are only two matches for her marrow type in Los Angeles. One of them was Kasey Broach.'
I heard wood creak as Cal sat down. 'Was the other match Genevieve?'
'No,' I said. 'Some girl named Sissy Ballantine.'
'Did you say Sissy Ballantine?'
'Yeah. Why?'
Cal's voice got tight. 'An Amber Alert just hit my desk. Ballantine was snatched outside her house in Culver City a few hours ago. Neighbor saw a guy wrestle her into a white van.'
I threw the Highlander into park, turned off the engine.
Cal said, 'Stay put. Do not approach that house. We're on our way.'
'Get over here.'
'Stay out of the house. Promise me, Drew.'
I snapped the phone shut, grabbed the tire iron from the trunk, and headed back down the street.
Chapter 43
As silently as possible, I approached through the neighboring hedges. The garage door had been lowered, and I could hear from behind it the screech of tape being stripped from a roll. Slowing my breathing, I eased up on the window at the side of the garage, wading through a scented hedge of juniper. A dusty set of venetians guarded the glass, but where the stiff blinds had been tweaked down, I could see into the dim interior.
Lloyd's waist and legs protruded from the back of the van. At his feet a heap of plastic drop cloth. He emerged, roll of tape in his mouth, X-acto knife in his hand. Judging from the unused material, he was on the tail
