by Mary Feliz
Simplicity Itself Organizing Services
Friday, November 7, 1:00 a.m.
I’d been restless for a long time before falling asleep and when Belle’s barking woke me, I sprang immediately into alarm mode. Max and I collided at the doorway to our bedroom, shrugging into sweatshirts and dashing across the hall to make sure our boys were safe. Linc met us at the base of the attic stairs, holding his phone.
“I’m afraid my phone woke Belle up. I’m sorry to have disturbed the whole household. It was security. Stanford.” He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and started again. “The Stanford Department of Public Security. There’s been a small explosion in my lab and they want my help to secure the site. I’m the emergency contact for our building.”
“Was anyone hurt?” Max asked.
“Not as far as I know. I’ve got to get dressed and drive over there.”
“Is there anything we can do?” I asked.
Linc blinked and looked at the ceiling as though he’d find the answer there. I suspected he was not as awake as he’d first appeared.
“Do you want a lift over there? Your car is still at Stanford, isn’t it?”
“No, no, I’ve asked too much of you already. I’ll ride my b—oh, right. It’s banged up and still at the house.”
Max reached around the edge of our bedroom doorframe, grabbed his keys from the dresser, and tossed them to Linc. “Take mine,” he said.
“Go on up and get dressed,” I told Linc. “I’ll make you a sandwich and coffee to take with you. Who knows when you’ll get another chance to eat?”
I dashed down the stairs before Linc could protest. Max came with me and brewed the coffee while I threw a sandwich together.
“That was nice of you to lend Linc your car,” I told him.
“It wasn’t nice. Not at all. I didn’t want you to drive him at this hour, and I didn’t want to go out, either. If he’s not back by the time I need to go to work, I’ll work from home.”
“I’m not sure whether you’re clever or lazy, but it was still a nice gesture.”
Max dodged the compliment. “That looks great,” he said, nodding to the sandwich I’d finished and was cutting into two halves. “Would you make me one? Please?”
I chuckled. “Look and see if there are any cookies left too.”
I decided I might as well make sandwiches for the kids’ lunches too, since morning was going to come way too quickly following this impromptu midnight snack.
Linc flew down the stairs. I gave him his sandwich and a travel mug. Max handed him a flashlight from the lineup on the counter at the back door. Flashlights were Max’s thing. He made sure we had fully charged and fully operational flashlights at the ready for any disaster. He referred to his obsession as “earthquake preparedness,” but the kids and I suspected he just liked flashlights.
We’d only just gone back to sleep when our house phone rang.
Bleary-eyed, I patted the side table until I connected with the phone and located the on button in the dark. “Hello?”
“Maggie McDonald?”
“Who is this?”
“Stanford security. Do you know Professor Sinclair?”
I sat up straighter in bed and turned to drape my feet over the side and shove them into the worn shearling boots I used as slippers.
“Yes, of course. He’s at his lab. Didn’t you call him an hour ago?” I squinted at the clock to check the time. It was after two a.m. “Surely he’s there with you?”
“He never arrived.”
“I’m sorry, did you say he’s not there? How long has it been? Did you try phoning him?”
“He’s not here yet. We’ve tried calling his cell phone, but there’s no answer. We hoped maybe he’d just gone back to sleep.”
I shook my head, trying to force myself to be a little more awake. Max shrugged into his sweatshirt for the second time and mimed that he’d go downstairs and heat up the coffee.
“I saw him leave,” I explained. I thought for a moment, searching for a logical and benign explanation for Linc’s absence. It wasn’t as though he’d have any trouble finding his own lab or that there would be any traffic at this time of night.
“Maybe the car ran out of gas.” I tried to make myself believe the words as I spoke them. “I’ll hop in the car and drive over there. I’m sure I’ll run into him on the way.”
I was about to hang up the phone when I had another thought. One I wished I hadn’t. “Are you still there? Did you call the Orchard View police?” It seemed unlikely that Linc might have crossed paths with the silver truck that had run him off the road, but I would feel better if I knew the police were looking for him. I could give him a lift in my car if his had broken down, but if he’d tangled with the silver truck, chances were we’d need the police.
“We have, ma’am. They’re also on the lookout for him. If you’re coming this way, would you mind phoning me or checking in with me once you get here?”
He texted me his name and contact information. I dressed quickly and pulled my rumpled hair into a ponytail.
“Maggie, let me go,” Max said. “I don’t like the idea of you driving all over Orchard View alone in the middle of the night.”
“But I already know where Linc’s building is. You know what a labyrinth the campus is. It’s so easy to get lost, especially in the dark. It will be faster if I go. Can you stay here and hold down the fort?”
Max peered into the dark outside our bedroom window. “If I can’t, Rocket is out there.”
“I forgot about him. Should we take him some coffee or something?”
“I’ll call out into the darkness after you leave and see if he wants anything. I’ll feel ridiculous, but I’ll do it.”
Like Linc, I dashed to the car, barely giving Max time to blow me a kiss and urge me to be safe. He followed me to the car and handed me a sandwich and travel mug.
I cursed the time it took for the windshield to clear and tried to remember “slow is smooth and smooth is fast.” It’s more difficult than it sounds.
I pulled the car out of the driveway and headed down the hill toward Foothill Expressway, peering through the bottom of the windshield where the defroster and the windshield wipers had cleared the condensation.
Halfway to Stanford, I saw flashing lights, flares, and heard sirens. I slowed for the cop who was directing what little traffic there was in the middle of the night. He waved for me to drive on, but I stopped and rolled down the window.
“Please keep driving, ma’am. We want to keep the lane clear for a tow truck.”
“I’m sorry, Officer,” I said, forcing myself to speak slowly and more calmly than I felt. “But Stanford security asked me to try to locate Professor Linc Sinclair. He’s driving my husband’s Prius. Can you tell me whether he’s been involved in this accident? Is he hurt?”
The officer looked nervously over his shoulder, which scared me more than the news that a tow truck had been called.
“Can I park over there, off the road, and check with your supervisor?” I asked, pointing to the right-hand shoulder beyond the cluster of emergency vehicles. When you’re new on the job, I knew, it’s difficult to answer questions that weren’t included in your training. And this officer looked brand-new.
He agreed and waved me on.
I found Linc seated on the back deck of an ambulance, where a paramedic was patching him up with Steri-Strips and gauze bandages. The parts of his body that weren’t banged up from his previous crash sported fresh wounds. I stood to the side to let the paramedic complete his work.
“You’re pretty battered and bruised here already, sir,” said the paramedic, palpating some of the worst of Linc’s injuries. “And I really don’t like the look of that hand. It needs an X-ray and a splint, maybe a cast. Have you had a doctor look at it?”
Linc nodded, although I knew that the closest he’d come to a doctor were the veterinary technicians he’d seen while Newton was receiving treatment.
“Are you safe at home, sir? Is someone hurting you?” The paramedic knelt down and looked Linc in the eye while he waited for an answer.
“What? Safe?” Linc asked, but then his brain must have kicked in. “Oh, thanks. No. I’m safe at home and at work. No one is abusing me, if that’s what you mean.”
I stepped forward and put my hand on Linc’s shoulder. “He’s been staying with me for the past few days,” I said. “Is he good to go? Do you need to take him in?”
“I’m recommending we transport him to Stanford Hospital for X-rays and observation,” the paramedic said. “He hit that fence hard and his Prius is totaled.”
“No, no,” said Linc, putting his hand on my shoulder and standing up. He winced as he stepped forward. “I borrowed that car. Oh, Maggie. I’m so sorry. Max will kill me.”
“Max will be glad you walked away from the crash,” I told Linc. “Don’t worry about the car.”
“Sit back down, sir. I’d feel more comfortable if you went to the hospital, but if you refuse medical attention, I’ll need you to sign a form. And I strongly recommend you see your own doctor tomorrow. If you’d sit right here, I’ll get that paperwork for you.”
“Ma’am?” The paramedic gestured to me to join him a few steps away from where Linc sat.
“He was getting agitated in the patient compartment when we were working on him, and asked to stay outside where he could see what was going on with his car. Does he have mental health issues we should know about?”
I explained Linc’s recent history and told him that Stanford security was waiting for us. When a patrol sergeant introduced himself, I gave both of the emergency responders the name of my Stanford security contact and asked them to call him and let him know where we both were.
After a quick consultation over an interagency communications system that reduced all conversations to a series of squawks and coded terms I couldn’t understand, both the sergeant and paramedic said that we could go after Linc took a Breathalyzer test and had signed a ream of forms that he flipped through without reading.
In between forms, the patrol sergeant asked about the accident. Linc told him about the silver pickup that had pushed him off the road. At first I thought he was talking about the previous accident. But then I looked at the side of Max’s car and saw the long streaks where it had collided with the silver pickup.
But Linc had been driving Max’s car. The only way the driver of the truck could have known Linc was in the car was if he’d been spying on us, waiting for Linc to leave. I shivered and felt violated, knowing that someone had been watching the house and my family.
“Sergeant, that silver pickup has been stalking this man,” I said. “That’s where his other injuries came from. Paolo Bianchi at Orchard View PD knows all about it. Do you know him? He’s got the background on the truck.”
The patrol sergeant nodded gravely with a look on his face that gave nothing away. I wondered if he’d practiced the expression in the mirror, or if they gave lessons at the police academy.
“Sergeant, the silver truck,” I said, tamping down the hint of hysteria I heard in my voice. “Are you aware that you’re supposed to be on the lookout for it? Should you call in to indicate it’s been in what could have been a very serious accident? Please tell me you’re taking this seriously.”
“Of course, ma’am,” the sergeant said. “We take all the cases we investigate seriously. We’ve already called it in.” He gave Linc his card and said someone from the department would call in the morning to talk about the accident, give him the papers he’d need for the insurance, and address any follow-up issues.
“The car actually belongs to my husband,” I said. “Max McDonald.”
The sergeant turned to me with an indulgent smile and I suddenly felt very sheepish. “Of course,” I said. “I’m sorry, Sergeant. You already know that from the registration, don’t you?”
“Mrs. McDonald. It’s late and we’re all tired. That’s the thing about accidents. They shake people up and they never happen at the right time. Please, don’t worry about it. And here, give my card to your husband too.”
I pocketed the man’s card and noted how refreshing his manners and attitude were compared to Detective Apfel’s.
“And get those injuries looked at,” the sergeant told Linc. “You may find them a good deal more painful after the adrenaline wears off.”
Linc traded the blanket the emergency crew had given him for a warm jacket Max had stashed in the back of his car. I found gloves and a warm cap in the pockets of my jacket, which I didn’t recognize in the dark. Max must have handed me the first available jacket hanging on the pegs by the door.
* * *
I turned my car’s heater on full blast as Linc gave me directions to his lab.
“Linc, I’m going to hang around and give you a ride home. Your car has been sitting in the lot for ages. Anyone could have gotten to it. You shouldn’t drive it or even start it until the police have had a chance to look it over.”
“Maggie, I think you watch too much television,” he said.
I turned to look at him with the “do as I say I’m your mom” look I used on Brian and David. It must have been scarier than I thought.
“Okay, okay. You can drive me home,” Linc said. “Turn right up here at the stop sign.”
Stanford liked to encourage walking and discourage driving. It would have been impossible for me to find a direct route to the building, especially in the dark, but Linc knew a few shortcuts of dubious legality. We stopped at a blinking barricade in the road. Linc flashed his badge and the security guard waved us through as he clicked his shoulder mic and let his supervisor know we were on the way.
As we drew closer to the building, another officer wearing a reflective safety vest and super-cool glow-in-the-dark gloves directed us to park in the back of a building next to the one where I’d picked up Newton.
A smoky smell permeated the air. In the beams of the bright generator-powered emergency lights, I could see that the same air was filled with particulates. I covered my mouth with a gloved hand and looked around to see if the security team was wearing masks.
And that’s when I spotted Detective Awful. I ducked into the shadow behind one of the generators and felt ridiculous. It was too late to hide. He’d seen me and my effort to avoid him.
But, before he could approach us, a young woman with a remarkable resemblance to Kate Middleton introduced herself as the university’s chief of police and showed us her identification.
“Professor Sinclair?” she asked.
“Linc, please.”
“Are you all right, sir? You look pretty banged up. Do you need to sit down?”
“No, no, I’m fine. But someone called me—hours ago by now—about securing the lab? Was anyone hurt? My graduate students work late. Was anyone injured? The night cleaning staff?”
The chief took Linc by the elbow and moved him away from the crowd. I trotted after them, wondering what my role was here, but determined to learn as much as I could. Tonight’s attack on Linc’s car was, I thought, the third attempt on his life, and I wanted to be sure the chief would give it the attention it deserved. The explosion at the lab couldn’t be a coincidence, either.
I sidled up next to Linc just as the chief explained that the Santa Clara County Arson Squad had arrived on the scene an hour earlier. “They’ve found no sign that anyone was inside the building when it exploded. My own campus investigators are making sure everyone with access cards has been accounted for.”
“They told me on the phone it was a small explosion,” Linc said. “It doesn’t look too bad from here . . .” Linc’s voice broke, and I grabbed hold of his hand to lend him what strength I could.
The chief looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. “And you are?”
Linc blinked and stepped forward. “May I introduce Maggie McDonald? She’s a friend. I’ve been staying with her family for a few days. Maggie, this is Chief Katherine Trent.”
> I reached out to shake hands, but the chief ignored my gesture and turned to Linc.
“As far as the building goes, don’t let it fool you,” Katherine said. “The inside is a mess. We’ll start escorting researchers in one by one tomorrow to retrieve their belongings, but no one will be working here for a good, long time.”
Then the chief turned toward me and held out her hand. I shook it. She’d ignored me before, but she was balancing a number of priorities and I could easily forgive a minor lapse in social protocol.
“Mrs. McDonald, it’s very nice to meet you. I am, however, going to have to ask you to step behind the yellow tape. Our crowd of onlookers is growing, and I need to keep this area clear for law enforcement.”
“Linc?” I wanted to respect the chief’s wishes, but he was still emotionally fragile and after several attempts on his life, physically fragile as well. If he needed me to be here with him, I was going nowhere, chief or no chief.
Linc patted the air, as if he were trying to keep me from getting riled up. “I’ll be fine.”
“Professor Sinclair,” the chief said. “I’d like to ask you some more questions. Alone.”
Linc looked at me and I looked back. We both shrugged. “I’ll be right here when you’re finished,” I said. “I’ll take you home when you’re ready.”
Chief Trent escorted Linc across the rubble, guiding him with her hand on his elbow. I turned back and ducked under the crime-scene tape. I’d spotted a concrete bench where I could wait for Linc and observe the movements of the emergency professionals and the crowd.
I texted Paolo to let him know about Linc’s accident, my suspicions about the silver pickup, and the explosion in the lab. I knew that Stanford, Orchard View, and Santa Clara County law enforcement shared information, but things were happening so fast, I wasn’t counting on anyone’s ability to keep up. Besides, texting Paolo gave me something to do while I was waiting.
While I texted, a shadow loomed over me. I looked up. It was Detective Awful. I looked down again. “Just a moment, please, Detective,” I said.