Grady. Why did we have to rehash the past? So really my questions about the coke and her story about the beating went unanswered except in the most general way.
“Then things went along fine for a while. At the ripe old age of fifteen Grady got her first boyfriend. She thought it was serious. Sydney and I were determined that Grady was too young, and she was, and we determined that we were going to break it up, and we did. Grady has the strongest will of any child I have ever known. The apple of my eye, my little honey, turned into a tigress. Since she didn’t want to hate her mother, she sent it all my way. Every ounce of it.
“Soon thereafter, when Grady was sixteen, Sydney was in a really bad car accident with a drunk who ran an intersection. We thought she might die, but she didn’t. I went to see her when she was really bad, and she begged my forgiveness and told me she had lied about Jason. He had been talking about moving to France and it scared her. She knew there would be a divorce and was desperate to get Grady.
“While Sydney was convalescing, Grady begged her mother to place her with her Aunt Lynn. Lynn was what Grady wanted because Lynn worked, wanted the money that went with keeping Grady, and meant well, but had no time. So Grady lived as though she were eighteen when she was sixteen. And I lost her. It broke my heart, but I understood Sydney giving in to Grady.
“With Sydney’s revelation I went after my brother and began visiting regularly and here we are today.”
“Quite a story,” Sam said.
“You’re not going to go over how stupid I was, are you?”
“Lectures? Nope. I’m the guy who got his son killed.”
For one of the first times in her life, Grady wasn’t sure what she should do. A full day and night had passed since she had spoken with Guy. Her trainers had announced a twenty-minute break, during which Grady was to pee, think, and, as Spring put it, find her center of gravity. Spring, like Sam, was a force to be reckoned with.
Grady had only twelve more minutes in her bedroom alone. She closed her eyes and picked up the phone, determined to call Guy.
“Grady?” A knock at the door. It was Spring.
She put the receiver back. “Yeah?”
Spring opened the door, looking partly stern, a little sad, and slightly amused. Jill was with her.
“Why did you have to go and blow the rest of your time?” Jill asked. “Now it’s another one-hour run. Why don’t you tell me what you are doing? Don’t lie to me.”
“I was trying to make a call.”
“To whom?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“Okay. Well, you know the rules. No calls until we have an agreement about calls.”
“And when does that happen?”
“When we trust each other,” Spring put in.
“That could be a long time.”
“That thought had occurred to us,” Jill said. “Now start your run.”
Devan Gaudet sat in the back of a dark-windowed van down the street from the Carter Building. The leaves were not yet showing autumn color, but the women were cloaking themselves for the season, and watching them was enthralling. They had style, and an aloof self-assurance that he found sensual.
An hour earlier he had seen a man named Shohei lurking around the apartment of Anna Wade. Shohei was a world-class bodyguard who sometimes worked for the man he knew only as Sam, a figure who was more apparition than man, hidden behind a cloud of emissaries, agents, and collaborators. This confirmed his hunch about the “Sam” who had found Anna Wade in the waters of British Columbia.
Had he been sure that Anna was involved with this man, he would have raised his price. When he last crossed paths with Sam he had nearly been caught, which meant that he had nearly failed in his mission. Having to move quickly made this one an especially challenging job.
For once the regular gumshoes rounded up by Chellis had been useful, setting up first-class electronic surveillance from across the street.
What he was doing now was risky and he knew it, far more complicated than simply killing her. In the new America there were more police, and the slightest hint of terrorism would bring in an army. Laws had changed and the American police had many more surveillance powers and greater numbers and were increasingly wary.
He stepped out of the van wearing gabardine slacks, a white shirt, and a name tag that said BRICKRIDGE TECHNICAL SERVICES. He carried a briefcase, a cell phone, and two pens. Salt-and-pepper gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard along with gold wire-rimmed glasses gave him the look of a college professor. Inside the Carter Building he took the elevator to the fifty-ninth floor.
After a quick survey of the hallways, he proceeded to the roof. The helicopter was no surprise; the people he was dealing with were far too clever to allow themselves to be trapped at the top of a high-rise. According to his sources this was the only office building in Manhattan on which a helicopter could be landed and it required a special permit. Quickly he moved back downstairs and entered the offices of Dyna Science Corp.
He greeted the receptionist who sat behind a large built-in island that looked like a breakfast bar in a modern kitchen. He smiled and showed her his name tag, while she transferred a call.
“Super sent us up here. We’re checking for spores. Stachybachus. There were some complaints on the fifty- ninth. I’ll just be taking some dust samples.”
“Spores?”
“Yes. If overly abundant they can cause a significant health risk. But we can fix it, even if the concentrations are high.”
“Well, that’s good to know,” said the young woman, a blonde with wonderful skin. She also had a name tag. Virtually everyone had a name tag these days.
The phone beeped quietly and she spoke into the headset.
He opened the briefcase and removed a tiny vacuum machine utilized in the collection of dust samples from carpets.
“Maybe I could just take a sample from under here,” he said, coming around behind the island. She looked slightly dismayed at having a man crawling around near her legs, but soon got caught up in another call. He pressed a small microphone onto the underside of her desk. It stuck on contact.
He went down the hall to the rest room, where he entered a stall and set up shop. From his briefcase he removed a Beretta semiautomatic with a silencer already affixed. Next he installed an earpiece and commenced the tedious job of listening to the receptionist. It was a full twenty minutes before he heard the serious-sounding male voice of Dr. John Weissman.
He placed the pistol in the briefcase and exited the rest room.
Alder leaves of yellow and mustard brown were strewn in the trail and the wet had matted them like carp scales, making the forest run almost quiet save for the wet thud of tennis shoes and the raspy breaths of tired lungs. Jill and Grady broke out of the park and onto a three-cornered beachfront road where a group of small shops attracted tourists.
“I’m going to use the rest room,” Jill said. “You be good.”
Grady saluted, and after Jill had disappeared into the ladies’ room she trotted to a nearby phone booth, punched in the number of Guy’s cell phone, and used her calling card number to make the connection.
“Hey,” she said when he answered.
“Where are you?”
“Way up the coast. Near Carmel, I think, maybe Big Sur. There aren’t any signs right here.”
“Are they holding you against your will?”
“I can leave any time I want. I’m okay. It’s rough but I’m okay. I could really use a hit but I guess that’s the whole point. Look, any second my keeper will be coming out of the can, and if she sees me I’m toast. So I just called to say I’m fine and I’ll call for a real talk as soon as I can.”
“Take your time. I know you’re working through things but I do love to hear your voice. You need to let me know where you are, just in case.”
