Sarah drains the glass. “I’m not a lady.”
The salesman doesn’t say anything. Sarah feels her face get hot with anger and alcohol.
“I was just making conversation,” the man says.
“You were trying to fuck me.” Sarah’s voice is matter-of-fact.
The salesman doesn’t speak. He looks at her strangely.
“It’s okay.” Sarah touches his arm. “I was trying to fuck you, too.”
The salesman shifts his weight, leaning away from her slightly.
“This guy tried to fuck me yesterday,” Sarah says. “I had to shoot him.”
The salesman’s face turns white.
“You ever shot anybody?” she asks.
The salesman begins to shake.
“Don’t worry.” Sarah notices his distress. “I’m not gonna shoot you. I didn’t bring my gun.”
The man pushes away his unfinished beer. He throws a twenty on the bar, slides off the stool, and hoofs it to the exit.
Sarah watches him go. What the fuck? It wasn’t like she actually pulled a gun on the guy. She returns to her e-mail, anger and frustration swirling around in her stomach along with all the booze.
The bartender scoops up the money and the beer bottle. He says, “Everything okay?”
Sarah nods, orders another Bloody Mary, wonders if the bartender knows where she might score some coke. A little pick-me-up would be good about now.
Her thumbs hover over the letters, but nothing happens. The words have disappeared from inside her, replaced by a dark emptiness.
She closes the e-mail and logs on to the website where she arranges meetings with her horndogs, the one where she met RockyRoad35. One of the features of the site is a notification system that tells you when someone else has been viewing your profile.
Sarah’s profile has been viewed eleven times this morning alone, all by the same person.
RockyRoad35. A dead man.
- CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE -
Chester gave me a tour of the lake house, a three-bedroom home built sometime in the 1950s.
The walls inside were wood-paneled, floors covered in brown shag carpeting. The furniture was old and dusty. The air smelled like mothballs and fried onions.
There was nothing in the closets or any of the drawers except hangers and roach droppings. The kitchen cabinets contained a handful of glasses and plates that looked like they were from the set of Leave It to Beaver.
We wandered out to the back patio, which offered an elevated view of the boiler area, maybe four hundred yards away.
Not a slam-dunk shot like at the Black Valley substation. But not difficult either. Certainly doable.
“How many other Sudamento plants have lake houses?” I asked.
Chester shrugged. “I don’t really know. Maybe three or four. The plant managers, we don’t ever use them.”
“Who does use them? People from the home office?”
“I guess. Doesn’t seem like anybody is out there very much.”
“Your security people,” I said. “Do they regularly check on this place?”
Black Valley’s cooling lake had a lakefront house, too, much smaller than this one, more of a shack. But the attack hadn’t technically occurred on the plant premises. Maybe whoever was responsible had scoped out the plant from the lake house and then decided to strike the substation from the ridge behind Thompson’s farm. An unoccupied home on or near the premises would make a great staging area for an attack.
“They’re supposed to,” he said. “But you know how that goes.”
“What did the police say?” I asked.
“Police?” Chester cocked his head. “Here in McCarty?”
“So who investigated?”
“Sudamento sent some people from the home office.”
“Price Anderson?”
“He was one of them, yes.”
“And what did the Sudamento people say?”
Chester stared at the tower looming over the horizon and belching steam into a cloudless sky.
“Something about a rifle range being nearby. They said the bullet probably came from there.” He paused. “We were only offline for a couple of hours.”
“So nobody official came out here at all, did they? No police or federal investigators?”
He shook his head. “And there’s no rifle ranges anywhere close.”
I stared at the boiler.
“Mr. Anderson. He told me that his people would take care of everything,” Chester said. “He told me that since the damage wasn’t too bad, we shouldn’t call the police.”
I nodded but didn’t reply.
“He said he’d already talked to the federal authorities about the situation. Said that if we get the police involved, then the newspapers might find out and that would hurt Sudamento’s stock price.”
I gave him my best blank stare.
“We didn’t realize there’d been an attack at first,” he said. “The heat readings on one of the units spiked, so I shut down the boiler and called the home office, like we’re trained to.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I followed the proper procedures.” He crossed his arms.
“How much Sudamento stock do you own, Chester?”
Overhead a pair of mallards glided toward the lake, wings cupped.
“Not much,” he said. “Just our entire retirement account.”
The retirement account for Chester and his cancer-stricken wife.
I walked around the patio, examining different angles and possible shooting positions. On the other side of the house was a gravel parking area that led to a dirt road.
I walked back to where Chester stood by the barbecue grill.
He pointed to the boiler. “Three transformers at the base. You see them?”
I peered into the distance. From four hundred yards away, the complex was an impenetrable mass of tubes, scaffolding, tanks, and wires. After a moment, I recognized the metal structures he’d pointed out from atop the boiler. Each was about the size of a large van.
“The shooter hit the heat sink on the one closest to us,” he said. “One shot only.”
“And that made the whole plant shut down?”
He nodded. “The juice had nowhere to go.”
I stared at the three transformers. The shot would have been relatively easy. The gunman probably used the barbecue as a rest, sat in one of the patio chairs. Whitney was right; the attack was a dry run, a probe. Taking one plant offline wouldn’t hurt the grid that much. They wanted to see what would happen if you shot a transformer.
“Fortunately, we had another unit on-site,” Chester said. “They cost about three hundred thousand dollars each.”
“How long would it have taken to get one here if you hadn’t had a backup?” I looked at my watch. It was coming up on noon. I needed to go see the old drunk from the VFW hall.
Chester shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Take a guess.”
“Six months maybe.” He shrugged. “They come on a boat from China.”
- CHAPTER THIRTY -
The sunlight hits Sarah’s eyes as she leaves the bar.
It’s the noon hour.
She squints and puts on a pair of Dior sunglasses, not the cheap ones she uses when she meets a horndog.
Her head buzzes from the Bloody Marys, eyes half blind from the light.
She staggers into the parking lot, holding her cell phone.
Someone is accessing RockyRoad’s account.
The voice of her grandfather rings in her skull: They’re looking for you, girlie.
The phone feels hot against her palm, like all of the sun’s energy is being directed into that tiny chunk of plastic.
You really think you could kill a lawman and get away
with it?
“Shut. Up.” Sarah squeezes her temples with one hand.
Even I never shot a damn cop. In Texas, at least. The old man cackles. Louisiana, now that was a different story.
“Please, just be quiet.” Sarah wanders across the parking lot to the sidewalk by the street.
The bar is behind her, the hospital across Gaston Avenue. Traffic whizzes by.
A homeless guy with a grocery cart stares at her. He pushes the cart into the gutter to avoid an encounter.
How’s your letter to Dylan coming?
Sarah sinks to her knees, the dirty concrete pressing against the artfully faded material of her True Religion jeans.
You’re telling her all about me, aren’t you? About her great-grandpappy?
“What do you want?” Tears stream down Sarah’s face.
I want to keep you out of prison. What the hell do you think I want? One grandkid going to the joint is enough, dontcha think?
She stares at the screen. Her profile page is being accessed again, this time by someone called “Admin.”
“The phone.” Sarah jumps up, frantic. “They can track me through the phone.”
“You okay, lady?” The homeless guy is still staring at her. He’s a few feet away, a concerned expression on his face underneath all the grime.
She realizes how she looks. She’s wearing a white silk blouse, $300 jeans, and Jimmy Choo pumps. An Hermès purse that costs as much as a used car hangs over one shoulder.
And she’s crying in front of a bar so sleazy even the cockroaches are on parole.
“I’m fine, thank you. Everything’s okay.” She sniffles, backs away from the homeless guy.
A store that loans money on car titles is on one side of the bar. A taco stand is on the other. Between the taco stand and the bar is a strip of asphalt leading to an alley.
Sarah dashes away from the street, toward the anonymity of the alley.
The area behind the bar is shaded with trees and smells like old garbage, rancid grease, and human feces. It’s full of overflowing Dumpsters, split trash sacks, and eight zillion crushed beer cans.
But no people. And she’s not visible from the street.
Sarah heads to the nearest Dumpster. She smashes the cell phone against the corner of the trash receptacle.
Nothing happens. The screen doesn’t break. The website is still visible.
She drops the phone on the pavement. Stamps it with her foot.
The device remains in one piece, screen still illuminated. The thin pumps she’s wearing pack very little punch.
A wave of panic swells in her throat.
How fucking hard can it be to trash one fucking phone?
A pile of debris lies across the alley. Cast-off building material. Lengths of two-by-fours, pieces of broken plywood, a half-dozen bricks.
She strides across the alley, grabs a chunk of brick, returns to where she left the phone. She kneels, slams the brick into the middle of the screen, and is rewarded with a crunching sound as glass cracks and electronic parts scatter.
Relieved, she tosses the brick.
From the side of the alley closest to the street comes the sound of feet shuffling and metal rattling, somebody pushing a grocery cart.
Sarah looks up.
The homeless guy is back. And he’s brought a friend, another street person. The second guy is wearing a dirty Dallas Mavericks sweatshirt with the sleeves torn off. He’s got a shaved head and one eye the color of milk.
The first one, the person Sarah saw on the street a few minutes before, has matted dreadlocks. He’s shirtless, wearing only a tattered navy blazer and dirty jeans.
Dreadlocks says, “You sure you’re okay, lady?”
Sarah doesn’t reply.
His buddy, the one with the milky eye, says, “How come you’re smashing your phone?”
Before Sarah can say anything, Dreadlocks flanks out, moving away from his friend to the other side of the alley. His position blocks Sarah from running away.
“You got any money?” Milky Eye says. “We need to get a ride to the VA.”
Silence. Sarah swivels her head, looking at each man in turn.
“My meds ran out,” Dreadlocks says. “I don’t feel so good when I don’t take my pills.”
“Leave me alone, please.” Sarah lets her voice sound weak and timid.
“What’s wrong?” Milky Eye cocks his head. “You got a thing against veterans?”
“How about I give you twenty bucks?” Sarah says. “Each.”
“Your purse,” Dreadlocks says. “How about you give us that?”
Sarah doesn’t react. She evaluates her options. Adrenaline burns off some of the alcohol in her system, and she feels a calmness wash over her.
“Maybe you could show us your tits, too?” Milky Eye rubs his crotch.
Sarah touches the Spyderco knife in her waistband, the lockback with a three-inch serrated blade that she used yesterday to free the naked girl from the serial killer’s van.
When she’d been twelve years old, her grandfather had told her to never leave home without a weapon of some sort. As an example, he’d shown her the Python he always carried under his denim work jacket.
At fifteen, her grandfather had hired an ex–Green Beret to teach Sarah how to take care of herself on the streets. At seventeen, she’d been in a beer joint in Texarkana when a man had tried to rape her. She’d used a pool cue and what the Green Beret had taught her and broken the man’s pelvis and both of his arms.
“Twenty bucks each.” Sarah slides the knife from her waistband. “That’s what I’m offering. Take it or leave it.”
“What’s that?” Dreadlocks points to the Spyderco.
“It’s a knife.” Sarah flicks open the blade. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will.”
“Shit.” Milky Eye laughs. “Look at this bitch, thinking she’s tough.”
Sarah’s still kneeling by the remains of the phone. The brick lies about a foot away.
“We’re gonna have a good time with Miss Richie Rich.” Dreadlocks moves toward her. “Wonder if she’s ever pulled the train before.”
The Green Beret used to talk about the heightened sensitivity you’d feel if you knew that trouble was coming.
Sarah can hear their ragged breathing, smell their unwashed bodies. She sees the individual specks of dirt on their faces.
Without warning, she rolls to the right, away from Dreadlocks, and scoops up the brick with her free hand. She stands.
Milky Eye is about eight feet away. He’s moving slowly toward her, arms out.
She throws the brick at his face, not putting a lot of power into the toss. It’s more about accuracy, and her aim is true.
One corner of the brick hits the man in his good eye.
He falls to the ground, screaming like somebody punched him in the balls.
Dreadlocks’s mouth hangs open.
Sarah rushes him, the knife held in her right hand, blade down.
Dreadlocks raises his left arm to block her attack, his right reared back to strike.
Sarah knocks the left arm away with her left hand and punches toward the man’s neck with her right, slashing his throat with the blade.
Dreadlocks’s eyes go wide. He stares at the blood gushing from just below his chin.
Sarah stands a few feet away, catching her breath.
After a long moment, Dreadlocks stops looking at the blood arcing from his throat. He turns to Sarah. He reaches for her. Then, he falls to the ground, dead.
Milky Eye is still screaming like a girl.
Sarah runs to where he lies.
His hands are pressed to his damaged eye, throat exposed.
She stares at the man, the enormity of what has occurred in the last few seconds dawning on her. Her life is a
wreck, and deep in her heart she understands she is the only one to blame.
In the distance, a siren sounds. Either an ambulance on its way to the emergency room or the police about to apprehend her.
The injured man at her feet screams louder.
“Fuck this,” Sarah says. She slices through the cartilage and other tissue that forms Milky Eye’s windpipe.
The screaming stops. Blood jets and then pools on the ground.
Good girl. The voice of her grandfather.
- CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE -
In the parking lot of the McCarty Creek Generating Facility, I sent Whitney Holbrook a text requesting a list of Sudamento plants that had lake houses as part of the grounds. I asked if it was possible to mark those that had separate access.
Every power plant had to have a body of water to act as a cooling agent. How many of those bodies of water had lake houses and how many of those houses had separate access was anybody’s guess.
The more I thought about it, the more the presence of a lake house seemed like a factor worth investigating. Like a fever indicated a cold was coming on, I had a hunch that a lake house might be a sign that a plant was prone to attack. A comfortable shelter that was rarely checked, near the target, a place for the attackers to hide while fine-tuning the assault.
Whitney didn’t respond.
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel.
The old drunk from the VFW hall—the man who might or might not have witnessed my deputy’s killer steal a car—lived in Italy, Texas. The town, located forty or so miles north of Waco, had about as much in common with the country in Europe as did an Olive Garden. But it was only about ninety minutes away if I used the lights and siren.
The next closest Sudamento power plant was an hour south, the opposite direction. The list Whitney had given me indicated that the facility had a smaller generator, only three hundred megawatts compared to Black Valley with fourteen hundred. Hardly worth visiting, in my opinion, especially since I didn’t know if it had a lake house, the presence of which was as close to a theory as I had at the moment.
Thirty seconds passed. No response from Whitney.
I dropped my phone on the console, activated the red and blue lights in the grille of the Suburban, and headed to Italy.
The Grid Page 13