The first half mile was pure agony. He breathed fire and tasted bile. The second half mile he sweated the remnants of booze and bad dreams. Even so, the mental metronome kept steady count, and when he reached a mile he knew he had to either stop or die.
When Marcus finally caught his breath, he looked around and realized he had no idea where he was.
He took almost an hour to wind his way home. Long enough to grow mildly hungry and to map out the day’s work. By the time he had showered and brewed coffee, the rain had returned. He ate his breakfast standing at the counter, watching crystal curtains close down his world.
The phone rang as he was sorting through papers and mail. Netty said, “Jay is having one of his bad spells.”
“Then don’t come to the office.”
“I could make it after lunch, I guess. Right now it’s pretty bad.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He could hear a high-pitched howling in the background, a single note that went on and on, as though being born mentally deficient had granted Jay the ability to scream without drawing breath. “Are you all right?”
“I should be asking you that. Was the video as bad as they’re saying?”
He tried to tune out the shrieking. “How did you hear about the Halls’ video?”
“This is a small town inside a small town. Somebody heard about it at church and called around. Word gets out about everything. Including where you stopped off last night.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Listen up, Marcus. You want to do some more drinking, you do it around friends. There could have been a night rider with a New Horizons paycheck in his pocket last night. Somebody who’d love to brag he was the one who turned you into mush.”
“Sounds like a time warp.”
“No it doesn’t. It sounds like good old common sense. Now, was the video bad?”
Marcus replied softly, “It was awful.”
“Those poor people. We gonna help them out?”
He found himself liking the way she said that. We. “I think we’re going to try.”
“That’s real good. You call me if you need me.”
“I’ll be fine.” And for a time after he hung up the phone, he really believed it was so.
MARCUS LABORED all day in his water-enclosed world. His corner of Netty’s office became ringed by law books opened and stacked one upon the other. Marcus had purchased them years earlier for his home office, when an attorney died and his widow auctioned his effects. At the time Marcus had felt sorry for the man. The books were dusty and smelled of disuse. After a while the odor faded into the background with the rain. Noon came and went, and hunger became just one more faint rumble upon the horizon, noted but not acknowledged.
By three-thirty he was done. Marcus showered, then ate eggs and toast standing by the kitchen’s tall sash windows. Sometime in the previous hour the rain had let up. Now the mist did not fall so much as float in the still air. Beyond his back window, sentinel pines stood patient in the gray afternoon, their branches turned to heavy green crystal. He stood and listened to the patter of drops falling off the roof, the sound keeping time to his quietly thumping head. Marcus set down his plate, reached for his keys and jacket and folders, and departed for the Hall residence.
Alma answered the door and led him into the living room. The tableau had changed little from the previous afternoon, except that Kirsten had reemerged and a few other people had gathered. Deacon Wilbur and his sharp-edged wife both nodded somber greetings. Alma started to introduce him to two other women, one white and the other Hispanic, but decided it was not worth the bother. Another couple he vaguely remembered from church stood close at hand and yet in the background. Deacon took note of Marcus’ expression and quietly suggested they give the family a little quiet. For reasons Marcus did not understand, when Kirsten rose, Alma motioned her to stay.
Marcus declined Alma’s offer of coffee, waited for her to seat herself next to Austin, then dove straight in. “There are a number of grave risks involved in proceeding.”
“You’re going to take on the case?” Alma’s voice remained as hollow as the day before. “You’re going to help find my baby?”
Marcus waited until she was silent once more, then continued. “As far as the case itself is concerned, our greatest problem is that we have no direct causal link between New Horizons and Gloria’s disappearance. Unless I can come up with something concrete, and fast, there is every likelihood the case will be thrown out and I will be sanctioned for filing a frivolous claim.”
“The police have come and gone again, this time with a detective and somebody from the FBI office in Raleigh.” Alma turned the words into a tragic litany. “And we’ve gotten three more calls from the State Department. Nobody is telling us a thing we don’t already know. Nobody is offering us any real help at all. They just say—”
“Hush up, Alma, honey.” There was no sting to Austin’s voice. Nor did his eyes leave Marcus’ face. “Let the man have his say.”
“As I explained on Sunday,” Marcus went on, “basically we have no case. But what is our objective here? Are we after some huge financial settlement? If so, we have lost before we’ve started.”
Marcus tapped the manila folder with one finger. “But if what we’re really after is to get your daughter back, there is a chance that just by filing these charges, we’ll spur them to action. New Horizons might fear the adverse publicity enough to press the Chinese to do what we can’t.”
Marcus paused, then continued more slowly, “There is another risk. Filing the charges might have the opposite effect. New Horizons might decide it is in their best interests to get rid of any evidence.”
He did not say more. Just stared across the glass-topped table. And waited.
It was Alma who erupted. Alma Hall, one of the most composed and distinguished ladies Marcus had ever met, now utterly unraveled. “What else are they doing to my Gloria now? You know what that FBI man told me? He was contacting our embassy! You know where the embassy is? Beijing! You know how far that is from my Gloria? Two thousand miles!”
Marcus glanced at her husband, who said simply, “You already know how I’m thinking.”
Austin’s quiet tone steadied his wife. She looked at him. “You agree with me?”
“There’s too much danger in waiting.” This Austin said to them both. “We need to strike the best we can.”
Alma gathered up her husband’s hand in both of hers, shifting it over so she could clench it in her lap. Hold it tight. She said to Marcus, “What will you do?”
“With your permission, I will leave here and drive straight to the federal courthouse in Raleigh. On your behalf I am filing a civil action against New Horizons and unnamed Chinese partners.” His voice sounded strong in his own ears. Professional. Lacking any hint of the apprehension he felt inside. “The charges are false imprisonment, labor and human-rights abuses, and intentional infliction of emotional and physical distress.”
Marcus slid the folders across to them. “One of these is for me, another for the court, the last contains your copy. The first page is a letter of agreement assigning me the role of counsel. Because there is an issue called diversity of citizenship, where our legal action holds national and international dimensions, this is a federal case. I am asking for both compensatory and punitive damages. You need to read all this carefully.”
“No I don’t.” Austin Hall extricated his hand and flipped open the folder. “Let me borrow your pen.”
“Mr. Hall—”
“Call me Austin and give me your pen. Time enough for reading later.”
Marcus relented. “You need to sign all the copies. You too, Alma.”
Austin scribbled and shoved the folders aside with angry jerks. Alma watched him, one hand on his arm, and said quietly, “I lay in bed all last night listening to my Gloria cry for help. You go do this, Marcus. Do it now.”
TWELVE
THE ONLY REASON Marcus heard Kirsten’s arri
val at all was because he was listening to the night chorus outside his open window. The first sound was a faint hint upon the boundary of hearing, a swish across the lawn, a scrape upon his stairs. For some reason, it only occurred to him much later that the noise might have warned of coming danger. As though on some level far beyond the realm of sight and sound, he knew the noise heralded something good.
He arrived on his front veranda in time to see nothing but a blond head bobbing into the night. Then he spotted the box resting by the door, and understood. Marcus bounded down the stairs and out across the lawn, calling softly, “Kirsten!”
She spun around. For one brief instant, the streetlight illuminated a different Kirsten, one of soft angles and tremulous needs. Then the hand gripping her throat lowered, and the harsh angry tone returned to her voice and her features. “Don’t sneak up like that!”
He found no need to point out that she had done the sneaking. “Sorry.”
“I just wanted to drop off some more data on New Horizons.”
She said nothing more as he fell in beside her, perhaps because the night was so still and so dark, perhaps because she was ashamed that she had parked two houses down instead of pulling into his drive. “Did you file the case?”
“I just got back a couple of hours ago.”
“Everything go all right?”
“It’s a pretty surefire procedure. I dropped the papers through the courthouse mail slot.”
Kirsten halted by a nondescript Nissan. She fitted in the key and pulled up the trunk, revealing two more boxes. “I don’t know why I brought this stuff down from Washington. All along I figured you were going to drop everything. Just like that other lawyer.”
Marcus realized it was the only apology she was ever going to offer. He hefted one of the crates, surprisingly light for its size. “A friend of mine pointed out that some cases are won even when they’re lost.”
For some reason the words caused her gaze to become even more revealing. But she said nothing, merely lifted the final box and waited for Marcus to reach out and shut the trunk. Together they crossed the lawn, the house yellow-red and welcoming ahead of them. Kirsten said, “Alma told me this was your grandparents’ house.”
“And mine. It’s the only home I ever knew.” Strange how the night and this closed woman could open him. “My parents weren’t much into parenting. They drank. My dad left when I was nine, just didn’t come home one day. My mom lasted about a year longer, then one night I woke up and heard her screaming on the phone at her mom, my grandmother. Telling her how she couldn’t take it, couldn’t raise me, either my grandma came for me or she was leaving me in an orphanage.”
The response was so quiet he almost missed it. “That’s terrible.”
“It was the best thing that ever happened to me.” The words were stripped of all pain by the night, and emerged so matter-of-fact that Marcus did not even question why he was speaking at all. “My grandpa had suffered a stroke a year or so earlier. He couldn’t get around anymore, so I started helping out the day I arrived. He’d built this house for my grandmother back when times were good. She loved this place. Wouldn’t ever think of selling it, not even when we were down to living off my grandpa’s Social Security check and what we could raise in our backyard garden. But my grandmother was one of those women who just made everything all right. I don’t know how else to describe her.”
He climbed the front stairs, lost in the memory of how good it had been to come home and find on the other side of that screen door an old woman who always cared. Quiet and loving and strong and always there for him.
Only when he dropped his case on top of the first box did he realize Kirsten had not climbed the steps. Marcus turned back, and quietly asked, “What happened to your family, Kirsten?”
“My parents were killed in an automobile accident.” She managed the first step, did not give any notice to his coming down and taking the box from her arms. Just stood there holding the night. “I’d met Gloria about four months earlier. She helped me. So much.”
He dropped the box by the others and returned to her. “And now you’re trying to help her.”
Kirsten reacted as though slapped, wheeling about, eyes focused now and flashing. She opened her mouth, shut it hard, said simply, “I have to go.”
Marcus watched her turn and vanish into the night, wondering about the sounds filling the air. His heart seemed to hum a silver chord he had not heard in so long he could not even think of what it meant.
BUT THE NIGHT was not done with him yet.
Marcus wrestled over the information Kirsten had deposited until almost dawn. With every passing hour his mood shifted, from astonishment to outrage to morbid curiosity. At half past four he had done all he could, save for one final call. He looked through his personal directory, came up with the name of a process server he had used in the past, a former federal agent based in Washington, D.C. He did not bother about the time. Process servers were known to live without the regular habits that governed the rest of mankind.
The man answered as always. “What now.”
“This is Marcus Glenwood.”
“So?”
“I want to serve interrogatories on officers at New Horizons.”
“There’s been work on them before.”
“By you?”
“No. But somebody who attracts that many flies, word gets around.”
Marcus glanced at the evidence now strewn about his office. It carried on into the next room, draping the floor with silky outfits the color of overripe rainbows. “Does the word say anything about how hard it was to track these people down?”
“Close on impossible. They’ve got a lot of practice at running. You looking at something big?”
“Very.”
“Then my advice to you is go for everybody right down to the night janitor. Because that’s about the only one you’ll get into court.”
THIRTEEN
THE NEXT MORNING Randall Walker listened on his mobile phone as Hamper Caisse reported in. “I did what you requested and entered the Stanstead woman’s house on P Street.” The voice was as laconic as ever, as gray as the man. “There are no further files.”
“You’re sure?”
“I searched the house for over three hours. I copied everything she had on the computer—hard drive and floppies. Spent another seven hours going through those. You’ll see it on my bill.”
Randall had his office swept weekly for bugs, but still never spoke to this man except on the mobile phone listed in a paralegal’s name. The paralegal had no idea she was the owner of a digital satellite line. Even so, talking to this man left Randall apprehensive. “You found the Hall girl’s thesis?”
“Exactly the same as before. Drafts of three chapters. Utterly innocuous material. She knows nothing of any interest to us.”
“I want a hard copy.”
“You’re wasting your time. And mine.”
Randall hesitated, then admitted, “You’re probably right.” Hamper Caisse usually was.
“It’s what you pay me for. To be right about these things.”
But the worries would not be denied. “Then why does my gut tell me otherwise?”
There was a brief pause. “You’re still worried?”
Randall found mild pleasure in having the gray man show any reaction whatsoever, even if it was only mild surprise. “I am.”
“I suppose I could go back and bug her apartment. But you’d just be wasting more money.”
“Do it anyway. And her car.”
He hung up the phone, stared through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the forested view beyond the parking lot, and wondered why he continued to be so afraid.
FOURTEEN
SUZIE RIKKERS had not slept well in three days, not since she learned from Logan that they were going to fry Marcus Glenwood in front of the federal magistrate judge. Every time she shut her eyes and drifted off, the thought of what was coming down struck her like an electric current. Wh
am. She’d jerk awake and lie there staring at the ceiling. Staring up into the dark and smiling.
Suzie Rikkers paced the sidewalk in front of the federal courthouse and smoked and chafed at the wait. She was very big on payback. As a little kid she’d watched her dad knock her mom and her older brother and sister around. A lot. She’d learned to hide whenever the rough voice and the boozy odor announced that her daddy was home. He hadn’t hit her much, mostly because by the time she grew too big to hide under the bathroom sink her sister had taken an apartment of her own. Left home and taken her brother and sister with her. Tried to take their mom too, but the woman wouldn’t come. Suzie had been very glad about that. As far as her eight-year-old mind was concerned, her mom was as much to blame as her dad, since she’d never managed to stop the bad times herself.
Suzie carried that load of early hate with her always. She had earned it. It was hers to wield. Anybody who stood in her way got chopped off at the knees. Especially men. Suzie Rikkers loved nothing better than taking down some smug self-righteous pea-brain who assumed because she was small and fine-boned she was an easy target. Apply the scalpel judiciously, that was her motto. Teach them to sing in a higher key.
The unquenchable lust for vengeance served her well in court. Suzie Rikkers entered the courtroom as she would a battlefield. There was nothing she liked more than legal assault. But her attitude created difficulties elsewhere. Especially inside the firm. The secretaries and paralegals were terrified of her. No problem there. They couldn’t do a thing except refuse to work with her. The problem area was the partners. They expected a little bowing and scraping. Even the two women partners. But the only partner who had ever dared attack her directly was Marcus Glenwood. The name alone was enough to frame her vision with fire. Marcus Glenwood had twice used the semiannual partners’ meeting to lodge official requests to have her fired. Marcus Glenwood had called her an affront to the legal establishment, a walking time bomb who someday would explode and splatter them all with neurotic garbage. Logan had shown her the minutes of those meetings.
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