Mania

by Craig Larsen

  “You’re grieving, darling.” She gave his hands a gentle squeeze. “I understand that. I’m here for you, and I’m not going to let you go. I promise.”

  Nick had to fight a sudden urge to break down.

  Sara’s face lit with a genuine smile. “Let’s go upstairs. It’s late. You have to change if we want to get to the gala in time for the dinner.”

  “The gala,” Nick echoed. He would be meeting Sara’s parents for the first time, thrust into the spotlight with this impossibly beautiful woman. After the day he had had, Nick wasn’t certain whether he had the resolve to attend the lavish celebration. He had been thrown to the filthy, urine-stained restroom floor in the bowels of the homeless shelter. He had stumbled over Daniel Scott’s corpse and then been grilled by Stolie. He had come face-to-face a second time with his brother’s killer. His shin was still throbbing where he had collided with the bench, and he could still feel the grime of the men’s room on his hands and the tickle of his own dried sweat under his clothes.

  “My parents are expecting us,” Sara said, reading his hesitation. “It will mean so much to me.”

  “I’ll try, Sara.”

  She leaned into him and gave him a hard kiss. “You can do it,” she whispered into his ear. “I need you to be strong.”

  “I don’t deserve you.”

  “Do you think I’m with you just to have a little fun, Nick?” She waited for him to understand. “Is that what you think?”

  “We’ve only known each other a few weeks,” Nick said. “What do you really know about me?”

  Jason Hamlin was aware of the instant when his stepdaughter entered the room. Hamlin had positioned himself midway up the broad red-carpeted staircase that swept down from the mezzanine of the concert hall. He was engaged in idle conversation with William Gutterson, Seattle’s chief of police. His muscular arms were folded across his chest, stretching the fabric of his crisp black tuxedo. The party spread out beneath him through the lobby and into the banquet rooms. The entire space had been elaborately decorated in broad swaths of silk patterned in a jungle motif. Huge cutouts of endangered animals were suspended from the ceiling on invisible wires, twisting in beams of carefully directed light. Hamlin’s posture stiffened, and he let his arms drop to his sides. Unconsciously, he closed his hands into dry fists.

  The chief of police noticed the change in the man’s demeanor. He paused in midsentence, realizing that Hamlin was no longer listening to him. Following his host’s gaze over the coiffed heads of the elegantly dressed guests, he spotted the object of Hamlin’s attention. “Your daughter is a beautiful woman,” he observed. The chief of police was aware of the muscles working beneath the taut skin of the other man’s cheeks.

  “Hmmm?” Hamlin mumbled, distracted. “What’s that?”

  Hamlin’s eyes had been fastened on the young man who had walked into the hall next to his stepdaughter. A thin young man with long hair, dressed incongruously in a regular sports jacket and tie in an ocean of tailored dinner jackets and gowns. Yet the man moved gracefully, Hamlin thought, with an air of self-possession. Nick’s unease only became apparent gradually, after Hamlin watched him enter the party. Sara’s hand was resting lightly on his shoulder, but Hamlin had the impression somehow that the young man was hanging on to her instead.

  Gutterson nodded in Sara’s direction. “I’ve never seen a more beautiful woman,” he said, repeating himself.

  Like Gutterson, Hamlin was struck by Sara’s beauty. She had dressed for the evening in a simple black dress, but no one in the room looked more elegant. He watched a small circle form around her. “Yes,” he said, finding his voice, “she is beautiful.” He glanced toward his wife Jillian a few steps below him, conversing with a few women. “She takes after her mother.”

  “Who is that with her?” Gutterson asked. “I’m sure I’ve seen him before. Recently.”

  “I don’t know his name,” Hamlin said, irritated that he didn’t. “Sara told her mother and me that she was bringing someone special tonight. I wasn’t paying much attention, though, I have to admit.”

  Gutterson didn’t miss the icy stare in his host’s eyes. You’re paying attention now, he thought to say. He knew Jason Hamlin well enough, though, to keep his mouth shut.

  “Are you going to find him?”

  Neither Hamlin nor Gutterson had noticed the woman approach, and the two men turned reluctantly from Sara. A tall, elegantly dressed woman was standing on the stair next to the chief of police, looking at him expectantly. Her hair was dyed a tasteful shade of chestnut, and she had seen the best surgeon in Seattle about the wrinkles around her eyes. Her age, Hamlin thought, was apparent only in the loose, wrinkled skin on her arms. “Natalie,” he said to her in brusque greeting.

  She smiled in return. “It’s a wonderful gathering, Jason,” she said to him. “You outdid yourself.”

  “It’s my pleasure. Have you tried the champagne yet?”

  She held up a crystal flute half full with sparkling wine. “So what of it, Bill?” she said, turning once again to the chief of police. “The Street Butcher. Are you going to find him? Charles works downtown. So does my eldest son. I’m worried for both of them.”

  “You’re correct to be vigilant, Natalie,” Gutterson said, straightening up. “But I wouldn’t spend too much time worrying if I were you. So far the violence seems to be confined to a pretty small community.”

  “Another serial killer stalking the streets of Seattle, nothing to worry about?” The woman glanced at Hamlin for support, appalled. “The city is crawling with homeless people. It’s downright scary. And what about that man—the biologist? He wasn’t homeless. He was one of us, Bill. The whole room is buzzing about it. You really must catch this maniac.”

  Across the soaring room, Nick felt totally at sea. Sara’s hand was resting lightly on his shoulder, but he had the impression that she was carrying him into the party, holding him up onto his feet. As he followed her into the crowded hall, the guests parted in front of them, then closed behind them, cinching them in more and more tightly as they moved toward the center of the lobby. Everyone seemed to know Sara, greeting her by name as she passed. Nick was aware of their eyes scrutinizing him, their surprise at his inappropriate clothes. He glanced down, following an elderly woman’s eyes to his feet. His old dress shoes appeared humble and clumsy against the plush red carpet, dross in a surfeit of glistening patent leather.

  When Sara stopped to talk to a couple she knew, a wave of panic washed over him. What if Sara left him alone there to fend for himself? But she didn’t. She pulled Nick close as she engaged in easy conversation with the young woman. When the woman’s partner started talking to him, Nick nodded at him, smiling when the man smiled, listening to the rhythm of Sara’s voice as she responded for him. The woman in front of Sara, Nick noticed, was adorned in so many diamonds that she seemed to be surrounded in a prismatic aura of light. And then they were moving forward again, finding their way toward the red velvet bar.

  “You’re doing beautifully,” Sara said.

  “Maybe some water will help,” Nick said.

  “We’re almost there, darling. I’ll get us a couple of glasses, and then in a few minutes we can go sit down at our table.”

  “You don’t have any idea how wonderful you are,” Nick said.

  “I told you, darling.” Nick felt her hand find the small of his back. “I’m not going to let you go.”

  “It’s a party, my dear. You’re supposed to be enjoying yourself.” Nick became aware of the woman’s voice before he saw her. His eyes tracked the words, and he found himself looking at Sara twenty years older. Only the woman addressing him was decidedly more formal than Sara, much more reserved—wooden even.

  “You must be Jillian,” he heard himself say. “Sara’s mother.”

  “How good of you to notice.”

  Sara’s fingers clenched his shoulder. Nick remarked that she didn’t move to give her mother an embrace. “Mother,” she said, �
�this is—”

  “You must be Nick,” Jillian Hamlin said at the same time.

  “Yes,” Sara confirmed. “Nick Wilder. The man I told you about.”

  Jillian studied Nick’s face. “You don’t like big gatherings like this,” she observed. “Well, I don’t blame you, dear. It was an acquired taste for me as well.”

  “It’s nice to be here with Sara,” Nick contradicted pleasantly. “And it’s nice to meet you.”

  Jillian acknowledged the hollow compliment with a tight smile.

  “Nick works for the Telegraph, Mother.”

  “You do? How fascinating. And what is it you do there, Nick? Are you a reporter?”

  “He’s a photographer, Mother. And a good one.”

  “I’m sure he is.”

  “I do some reporting, too.” Nick made an effort to find his voice. “But I’m not really working for the Telegraph. Not anymore.”

  “No?”

  “I work freelance now. Assignment by assignment.”

  “Jason will be impressed,” Jillian said.

  “I’m not so sure,” Nick said.

  “Don’t be so modest.” Sara gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Of course Jason will be impressed. He’ll have every reason to be.”

  “Why don’t you let me speak for myself?” Once again, Nick was aware that he was being addressed before he saw the speaker. His eyes alighting on Sara’s stepfather, he found that the voice matched Jason Hamlin’s angular, symmetrical face. He felt Sara’s fingers slip at last from his shoulder. “Jason Hamlin,” the powerful, charismatic man in front of him said, introducing himself. “And you are?”

  Nick hesitated. He glanced at Sara, waiting for her to speak for him, but her eyes were veiled, dropped to her feet.

  “Mr. Wilder, isn’t it?” Jillian offered.

  “Yes.” Nick tried to smile. His hand felt damp and weak inside Hamlin’s dry grip. “Nick Wilder. I’m pleased to meet you.”

  Hamlin let go of Nick’s hand and touched him on his shoulder. “I have a little emceeing to do, Nick,” he said. “But I’ll make a point to catch up with you later.”

  Nick watched the possessive way the financier wrapped an arm around Sara’s shoulders in greeting. She was a tall woman. From the moment he had met her, Nick had been conscious of her strength. Caught in Hamlin’s grip, though, she looked small and helpless. He was glad when Sara’s stepfather let her go, and he was relieved once the man was gone.

  After finishing dinner, Nick stood from the table where he and Sara had been seated and excused himself to go to the men’s room. He had barely touched his food, but he had drunk a glass of wine, and he felt flushed. He stood in front of the mirror, his hands pressed against the edge of the washbasin. “This is a party,” he said out loud to himself, repeating the words Jillian Hamlin had first spoken to him. “You’re supposed to be enjoying yourself.” He twisted the taps, plunged his hands under the stream of cold water, and splashed his face, then yanked a few paper towels from the dispenser. “Only another hour to go,” he said to his reflection. “You go out there and enjoy yourself.”

  Nick searched the large room for Sara as the door to the men’s room swung closed behind him. A small prickle of fear rose in his chest when he didn’t locate her at their table, and he made a conscious effort to calm himself. His gaze traveled from face to face across the expansive party, as if he were watching a slide show. Voices welled up against the walls, coalescing into a mechanical sound, Nick thought, like the rumble of a gigantic engine. All at once, from out of the cacophony, a single voice distinguished itself. No, I’ve never seen him before, either. I have no idea where he’s from. His eyes followed the voice to a woman, watching him from about thirty feet away. He tried to block out the woman’s voice, concentrating instead on the classical music drifting into the room from the orchestra, searching one more time for Sara.

  All the way at the other side of the party, engaged in a close conversation with another man, Jason Hamlin was also watching him. When Nick caught sight of him, he realized that he recognized the heavy, dark-haired man Hamlin was speaking to. He couldn’t immediately place him, but he had seen the man before, Nick was certain of it.

  Nick waited for Hamlin to drop his eyes, then reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the small, high-resolution digital camera he carried when it wasn’t convenient to lug around one of his SLRs. His first picture was a broad canvas of the room, which he would be able to enhance later on his computer. Then he zoomed in on the two men and took a close-up of their faces. He checked the screen to make sure he had captured a good picture, then slipped the camera back into his jacket and cut through the guests, heading toward them. Nick had meant it when he told Laura Daly that he didn’t feel comfortable taking pictures here for the paper. He didn’t want to betray Sara’s trust. Seeing Hamlin with this other man, though, had piqued Nick’s interest, and, despite his reluctance, he wanted to figure out who the man was.

  Hamlin was a good three or four inches taller than the other, mustached man, and he was leaning into him, crowding him. As Nick closed the distance between them, he could see the man’s unease. Sweat had gathered on the man’s forehead, above his bushy eyebrows. Where had he seen him before? This was a man with authority, a man used to getting his way, but Hamlin was making him nervous. Before Nick was able to get closer, Hamlin led the man away from the party, directing him through one of the open doorways into the concert hall.

  “Have you seen Sara?”

  A tall, thin man was standing in front of Nick, waiting for a response. “Sara?”

  “You’re Sara’s date, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  The man held out his hand. “Grant Jones,” he said. “I’m an old friend of Sara’s. Can’t seem to find her anywhere.”

  “Nick Wilder,” Nick said distractedly.

  “I saw her going upstairs with her mother,” another man said. “About five minutes ago. I was looking for her, too.”

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Nick said. He pushed past the two men in front of him, making his way to the doorway where Hamlin had disappeared, ignoring the voices behind him. Where did Sara meet him? You know, I have no idea. Just like Sara—she’s always been headstrong.

  The hubbub of the party fell away as Nick stepped through the doors into the empty auditorium, replaced by the crisp notes of the Seattle symphony performing without an audience on the stage far beneath him. He scanned the rows of plush seats until he spied the diminutive figures of Hamlin and his guest seated in the middle of the auditorium. The man’s sweaty face glowed red with the reflection of the velvet covering the seats. Nick reached for his small camera to get another picture of the two men.

  “Excuse me, sir. There’s no photography allowed in here.”

  Nick hadn’t heard the guard approach, and his command gave him a jolt. He swiveled toward him, surprised by how large the man was. The guard’s voice had traveled through the empty auditorium. Jason Hamlin turned to face him as well.

  “I’ve never seen the concert hall empty like this before,” Nick said.

  The imposing guard took a small step toward him until he was uncomfortably close. Before Sara slid next to him, Nick thought the man was going to wrench the camera out of his hand.

  “It’s okay,” Sara said. “He’s with me.” She nodded a discreet greeting to her father, then took Nick’s elbow and led him back to the gala.

  chapter 18

  Unable to sleep, Nick was behind the wheel of his old Corolla before eight the next morning, on his way in to the Telegraph. He twisted the key in the ignition, then released the parking brake. The car was rolling across the lot when a black stretch limousine glided to the curb, blocking his exit. He waited behind the wheel, contemplating the limousine. It took him a few seconds to understand that its driver was intentionally penning him into the lot. Nick tried to peer through its obscured windows, then, flustered, stepped out of his car.

  The limousine’s side window sli
d down with a high-pitched mechanical hum as Nick approached, and he found himself looking down into the eyes of the large bodyguard who had accosted him inside the auditorium.

  “Nick Wilder?”

  Nick nodded, taken aback.

  “I’ve been instructed to pick you up, sir.”

  Nick glanced over his shoulder at his car. He had left the motor running when he got out. “What’s this about?”

  “Mr. Hamlin sent me. He would like you to come downtown to meet him.”

  “For what reason?”

  “That’s not my business, sir.”

  “I’ll follow you, then.”

  The large man didn’t smile. “No, sir. Those aren’t my orders.”

  “I see.” Nick tried to peer into the back of the car, to see whether it was empty, but the windows were too dark. “Give me a minute,” he said, making up his mind. “I have to park my car.”

  “As you wish, sir.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the limousine pulled into the basement of one of the tallest buildings in downtown Seattle. As the car started down the ramp into the garage, Nick glanced up through the moon roof at the building’s glossy green glass façade. It was a cold, dark morning, and the skyscraper seemed to disappear into a cloud of drizzly mist. After pulling to a stop on the first level, the bodyguard accompanied Nick into the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor. The ultra-sleek elevator whined as it accelerated powerfully upward. Seconds later, its doors slid open to reveal a suite of private offices drenched in natural light.

  Despite how dreary it had been at the base of the building, it was so bright atop the tower that Nick had to shield his eyes. He squinted toward a wall of windows, surprised to find that the elevator had carried them above the fog. Tips of the taller buildings poked through the blanket of mist. Taking in the expansive view, Nick had the sensation that he was riding over the clouds in a plane.

  “This way, sir,” the bodyguard said. At eight o’clock, the offices were empty. Nick followed the bodyguard down a long, teak-paneled corridor to a door at its end.