Nearly ten minutes had passed before she noticed that the ice was melting in the bucket and the bruise was still throbbing on her leg.
I’m an idiot.
That’s all there is to it.
A complete idiot.
Oh, you were very professional today, Lien-hua. I stopped by at this time of night to tell you how professional you were. Here, let me stand in the hallway with my fist stuck in the air like a bad mime for a few more minutes. Did I actually say, “Health benefits. Gotta stay fit”? Did I actually say that?
Just shoot me now.
Well, at least I didn’t say what I was really thinking when she mentioned that she needed to ice down her leg. At least I didn’t say,
“I could do that for you.” At least I didn’t say that.
I’d kinda been hoping she might invite me into her room just to debrief the day.
Yeah, right-debrief the day.
Just chill, Pat. Get some sleep.
I tapped on Tessa’s door, but she didn’t answer. I figured she was either asleep or listening to her iPod. Probably both. I pulled out my phone to see if she’d left me another text message and instead found a voice mail: “I’ll see you in the morning, Patrick. Just don’t be all, ‘Let’s get an early start on the day!’ or anything. It’s annoying.”
All right then, tomorrow we would catch up, and she could fill me in on how she’d spent the rest of her day.
Although, based on a couple of the phone calls I’d made earlier in the afternoon, I thought I already knew. And she hadn’t spent much of her time at that Internet cafe that served imported coffee, or walking around Balboa Park. Instead, she’d spent nearly five hours at one of the seedy tattoo studios over on Market Street.
Well, I could talk to her about that in the morning. For now, I needed some sleep.
61
Creighton Melice lay on the cot in his cell and let himself relax into the deep unknown. He dreamt of spiders, as he often did, but tonight, with the end so close at hand, the images seemed as real to him as moonlight and blood.
And so. Now, his dream.
A spider the size of a baby’s fist wriggles up his neck and across his face, brushing her feet against his lips, his cheeks, his eyelids, the soft indentation beneath his nose. In his dream he’s paralyzed, so he can see her dark body pause on his cheek, but he can’t move, can’t brush her away. It repels him and excites him at the same time, sending shivers of secret pleasure running all through his body.
The spider rears back and lands with a prick in the middle of his cheek. He wants to scream but can’t make a sound; can’t brush her away. He feels the pressure, the widening wound, the gentle ripping sensation as she burrows into his cheek and the skin kisses open to receive her eggs.
She deposits her skinned offspring, then, in one moist plop. And he can feel the small wet sacks soak onto his tongue.
In the cocooned heat of his mouth it won’t take the eggs long to hatch.
Time passes. How much? A moment. An eternity. Impossible to tell. Impossible to know.
And then they hatch.
It’s a dream. It’s all a dream. Their whisper-thin feet explore his tongue. Some of the babies roll down his throat, while others manage to squeeze up and out the narrow passages of his nostrils. A few of the tiny spiders crawl out his mouth, nimble legs stepping over his teeth, across his lips, and then spreading out to scurry around his face. Always examining, always probing.
Of course, it’s just a dream.
It’s only a dream.
The rest of the babies descend deeply into him. Moist bodies sliding, wriggling against the tight, confining space of his throat.
Down. Down.
A dream. A dream.
All the way down.
Deeply, deeply.
They land in his stomach. They’re still alive.
Then he feels them wriggling inside him, and senses the quivering sensation as they begin to work their tiny mandibles and chew.
Devouring him from the inside out.
And he imagines how all of this would feel, should feel, how much it should hurt; but he notices only textures, light and airy; only pressure, blunt and numb.
Then Creighton Melice awoke, pleased by his dream, and rolled to his side. And there, in the solitude of his cell, he began going over tomorrow’s plan as he scratched at the small wound on his left palm that none of the cops who arrested him had bothered to inspect. Wouldn’t they be surprised.
Wouldn’t they all.
62
Wednesday, February 18
7:10 a.m.
The next morning, after a quick workout at the hotel’s fitness room and a brisk shower, I walked to the Internet cafe Tessa had told me about to buy some of what she called “weird-sounding coffee.”
The place featured mostly South American blends, and I grabbed a cup of some gracefully nutty Peruvian coffee from the Chanchamayo Valley. The high regions of the Andes produce a light-bodied, aromatic, and slightly sweet coffee, perfect for the morning.
I could taste that the coffeehouse had roasted the beans just a bit too long, but I was feeling generous and didn’t even mention it to them. I added a little cream and honey, no sugar, just like always, and sipped my way to heaven.
Since I expected to have some company for breakfast, I picked up a couple extra cups to go.
On his way to the Project Rukh Oversight Committee meeting, Victor Drake stumbled upon a realization so simple, so obvious, he was amazed he hadn’t thought of it sooner. Who cares why Austin Hunter started the fire? It didn’t matter. He was dead. He couldn’t hurt Drake Enterprises anymore. And the fire had been effective.
That’s all that mattered.
Everything had been destroyed.
Everything. Yes, this would work out to his advantage, after all. He could get the remaining files from Dr. Osbourne and shred them as soon as the doctor got back into town. Yes, yes, yes. And because of the fire, he could get out of the contract gracefully and there would be no board of directors inquiry and no public backlash.
Victor couldn’t help but congratulate himself on how brilliant he was. He began to hum as he drove, as he thought about the look he would see on the general’s face in less than an hour when he regrettably explained the unfortunate situation to him.
After leaving text messages for both Ralph and Lien-hua, inviting them to join me for breakfast on the hotel restaurant’s veranda, I brought my computer to an empty table, and pulled up my notes about this case. A flock of questions flew through my mind.
It was time to get them to fly in formation.
