Crosscut (20 page)

His cell phone rang. Excusing himself, he stepped away and answered.

Jesse continued picking at the paint. “I don’t like Heaney involving you, Ev.”

Dad crossed his arms. “If you could give the cops a description of the killer we could short-circuit this whole process.”

Jesse looked away.

Heaney, talking on the phone, sounded terse. He drooped, his suit wrinkling further. I saw his face.

“It’s bad news,” I said. “Something’s wrong.”

 
Tommy was standing in the break room at the China Lake police station, stirring a third lump of sugar into his coffee. The TV was tuned to a news channel. A red banner appeared behind the anchorwoman’s hair: BREAKING NEWS. The visual switched to a news copter hovering over a freeway.

He set down his coffee and leaned into the hallway. “Captain. You’d better see this.”

Across town, Abbie Hankins sat on her bed tying her Reeboks. Her hair was wet, but she didn’t have time to dry it. She had fifteen minutes to get to work at the museum. Hayley was bouncing up and down on the bed, waving two My Little Ponys overhead, singing.

“Fly, ponies, fly, fly.”

The red banner flashed on the television screen. Abbie stopped tying her shoes.

“Hayley, shush.”

The sound from the news helicopter was poor. She grabbed the remote and turned up the volume.

“... a break in the search for two-year-old Ryan O’Keefe. We can see flares burning on the freeway and the Highway Patrol directing traffic.”

Hayley bounced. “Over the sky, ponies fly.”

“Girl, be
quiet
.”

Hayley stopped bouncing. She blinked, her bottom lip quivering.

Exhaling, Abbie pulled her into her arms. “Sorry, baby.”

Hayley snuffled and started crying. Abbie held her.

The reporter shouted over the noise of the rotors. “There’s a copse of trees about a hundred yards off the freeway, and there are a
lot
of law enforcement personnel over that way.”

Abbie watched, holding Hayley tight. Near the trees, sheriff’s deputies loitered in an anxious circle. Abbie glimpsed a green Volvo wagon with its doors open. Photographers were snapping photos, crouching down for fresh angles. An ambulance was bumping slowly across the field toward it.

Hayley squirmed. “Mommy, you’re squeezing me.”

The ambulance stopped behind the deputies. Two EMTs pulled a stretcher from the back and rolled it toward the Volvo. They were walking slowly and didn’t have any medical equipment in their hands. Something else was rolled up on the stretcher, something black and shiny, and then they stopped and unrolled it and unzipped it, and Abbie knew what it was and what they were preparing to remove from the car and place inside it. She jumped to her feet, clutching Hayley, screaming at the screen.

I saw Heaney’s face, and knew. “No.”

“They’ve found Mrs. O’Keefe’s Volvo.”

I took a step back, putting a hand against my stomach. “No. Stop.”

“The little boy—” He cleared his throat. “He was in his car seat. He’s been dead for some time.”

A wrench tightened around my temples. I heard ringing in my ears.

Dad’s voice was almost inaudible. “Did he suffer?”

Heaney looked at him and instantly away. Things went starburst yellow. I broke into tears.

“Kit, sweetheart.”

Putting up a hand to keep him back, I walked away. Past the fountain and the flower beds, to the edge of the sidewalk by the street. I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes.

I heard Jesse wheel up and felt his hand on my back. He didn’t say anything.

After a minute I looked at him. Wiping the back of my hand roughly across my eyes, I turned to Heaney.

“We get this son of a bitch and we get him now. I’ll do anything you want.”

In the hotel room, Coyote threw the suitcase on the bed. Into it he heaved clothes, toiletries, the computer, the yearbook. The child had been discovered. The news whores were hawking it on the TV downstairs in the hotel bar. He saw the footage, overhead shots from the news copters. They were like jackals in a feeding frenzy. And yet they had the audacity to hold him in contempt, these scavengers feeding off of his kill. He was their meat maker, their bread and butter. Not one of them had the skill or courage to see the mission through to completion.

Taking the child had not been a capricious act. It had been necessary. The child presented a danger to the world. He was a contaminant, with the potential to cause incalculable damage. Ryan was only the end link in a chain of events that had gone horribly awry. His fate had been ordained before his birth.

Coyote looked at the back of his hand. The bruising was severe. A hematoma was rising where he had slammed the lid of the trash can on it. He squeezed and opened his fist. His fingers were swollen and his hand was stiff. Damaging the hand had been ill-advised. It was an invaluable tool, and he should care for it as meticulously as he cared for the weapons in their case. The hematoma was stretching the skin and tissue beneath. He took an X-Acto knife from his medical kit. Holding his hand above the bathroom sink, he cut a slit in his skin an inch long. He felt the pressure of the knife, and a tugging sensation as he sliced through his skin, but no pain.

Becky O’Keefe had felt no pain either. Because of that, she had sealed the fate of her child.

He set down the knife and squeezed out the bloody, half-clotted bruise, working his fingers across the injury like a baker kneading dough. It glopped out and slid down the side of the sink into the drain. He cleaned the cut with antiseptic and closed it with two butterfly bandages.

He examined his hand, flexing and opening it. Range of motion was greatly improved.

Back in the bedroom he continued packing. He paused to flip through the journal, checking the notes he had recently added and the important elements he had highlighted in yellow marker.

Evan Delaney had clawed her hands into the knowledge stream and discovered Argent Tower. How?

Where had things gone wrong? It was imperative to walk back the cat and untangle that.

Not overall, of course—the origin of the problem was evident. Things had gone wrong twenty years ago, in the dry desert air under a ringing blue sky, when South Star went nova in the explosion. And since then they had been invisibly aggregating, until recently everything had begun to unravel. He took the amulet from the desk and put it around his neck. It would bring clarity of thought.

Walk back the cat. Walk it back, walk it—

A flaw existed. Agents should not have been at Argent Tower. The unclean unworthy should not have been there either, dipping her hands in the knowledge stream and trying to pull Swayze out. Sway was his, and the presence of these others would warn her that he was near. That was intolerable.

How did they get there? Somebody had talked.

Somebody who wanted to thwart the mission. Or somebody who was sloppy. Or greedy.

He had to think this through. And when he followed the ball of string back to the source of the error he would have to reconfigure the mission.

But first he needed a new lair. He grabbed his things and left the room.

The breeze lifted my hair from the collar of my shirt.

“I’ll talk to Tommy and draft an article. Tell me what you particularly want me to include.”

“Emphasize the loss of your friends, the tragedy, what they meant to their families,” Heaney said.

“Twist the knife.”

“Right. Find out where the funerals are going to be held, and when. Make sure Coyote knows where his victims are being buried. The police will set up surveillance at the graves.”

“I have some media contacts who may run it,” I said. “If we’re aggressive about it we could possibly even get syndication, the Los Angeles market, widespread coverage. And if we can get it into an online edition, so much the better. You said Coyote’s probably obsessing about media coverage. You want to bet he’s searching for the story online?”

“Right.”

“Mainstream media is still probably the best bet to catch Coyote’s attention, but I can also try to get it linked to by some influential blogs, really up the search hits.”

“Good.”

“Okay. I’ll write it up and get you and Tommy a draft asap.”

Dad said, “Something else. That phone call I got, while we were driving over here? It was a fellow I knew at China Lake. I’d asked him to try to track down any flight crews and paramedics who might have been on duty the day of the explosion.” He was grave. “He found the helicopter crew. The pilot was killed last year, up near Whidbey Island.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “Carla Dearing. Tommy told me about her murder.”

“Coyote’s not just after the high school kids. He’s going after other people who were connected to the explosion.”

He glanced up at Argent Tower.

“Swayze,” I said.

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

Heaney said, “You want to give me some names and phone numbers?”

“I’ve got a whole slew of stuff for you in my briefcase,” Dad said.

Heaney ran his hand over his pitted face and looked at the building. “I need to speak with Dr. Swayze.”

Jesse wheeled closer. “Phil. You said the surgical fire that killed Dana West was arson.”

Heaney turned, startled. Dad nodded.

“Another of Evan’s classmates,” he explained. “Air force surgical nurse who died after going under the knife herself.”

“Shit,” Jesse said.

“It happened postop. An O
₂
line had a leak, and a spark from an electrocautery tool set off a flash fire. The O
₂
line fed overhead back to the tanks, which were near some nitrous oxide tanks. The clinic went up like that.” He snapped his fingers.

“Get to the part about arson.”

“Dana was alone in the OR when it happened.”

Jesse’s mouth went wide. “No way. The surgical team left her alone?”

“Small-time clinic, the OR served as their recovery room as well.”

“Still, nobody was monitoring her?”

“That’s not the shocking part. The doors to the OR were locked shut from the outside.”

“Oh, my God,” I said.

“Somebody set it up. He managed to get access to a military facility and convince people he belonged there. And he knew how to make it look like a catastrophic accident.”

The sound of traffic grated against my ears. The implications sank in.

“Dad, that’s not the shocking part. He didn’t just want to kill Dana. He wanted that clinic eradicated.”

Dad nodded. A sick taste spread through my mouth.

“Because the place was contaminated with something,” I said.

“That’s the conclusion I’m drawing.”

Heaney looked exhausted but intent. “Can you get me that stuff now?”

“Certainly.”

We headed back inside. The crime scene techs were still working in the lobby. The painters and janitors were waiting for them to finish so they could clean up the mess under the scaffold.

I took Dad’s elbow. “How did you find out all this?”

“Called in some favors.”

“How many?”

“About all of them.”

He’d done an astounding amount of research in only thirty-six hours, apparently involving wheedling and coaxing brutal memories out of grieving parents.

“You always dig this hard and this deep?” I said.

His expression told me I’d asked a stupid question. Of course he didn’t. He always dug deep, but he clawed at a problem this hard only when his family was involved.

He put his hand over mine. “After I get the things for Heaney I have some work to do. You get going and I’ll catch up tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

“You’re not going to stay at home tonight.”

“No, I’ll stay at Jesse’s.”

His heels clacked on the marble floor. He leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “Is he liable to have another one of these blackouts?”

Jesse answered, from closer than I’d expected. “I didn’t black out, and no. I won’t let it happen again.”

He pushed past us, off balance and angry. I opened my mouth, but knew that words would be worse than silence. He disappeared around the corner. We followed, and stopped. I grimaced. He was in front of the parking garage elevator, reading the sign taped to the doors: OUT OF SERVICE.

He gripped his push-rims. “Ev, can you go get the truck?”

“Sure.”

He fumbled the car keys out of his jeans pocket. They fell from his fingers to the floor. He bent down to pick them up and Dad’s golf shirt ripped open at the shoulder seam.

“Shoot. Sorry.”

He handed me the keys. He looked at the sign. And he hauled off, slamming the elevator control panel with the heel of his hand. The call button squealed.

For a moment he held his breath. Then his shoulders dropped. He laughed cheerlessly.

“Can’t tell me this freaking building doesn’t deserve it.” He spun and wheeled away. “I’ll meet you out front.”

For a second I watched his back. “Wait.”

But he was already gone around the corner. I called again and went after him. He was halfway across the lobby.

“Jesse.” I ran and caught him from behind, wrapping my arms around his shoulders. We skidded to a stop on the marble.

“Evan, what are you doing?”

I circled in front of him and put my hands on his knees. “I have to tell you.”

“What?”

I looked around for someplace where people wouldn’t interrupt. One of the scenic elevators opened and a woman got out.

“Hold that,” I said.

She caught the door. Jesse looked bothered and baffled.

“Will you please—”

“Move. Now.” I gave him the death stare.

He backed up, fast, into the elevator. “Delaney, what the hell is going on with you?”