by Meg Gardiner
The floor creaked behind her. She turned.
The bedroom looked exactly as she’d seen it moments earlier. The floor creaked again, in the hallway beyond it.
Chennault.
Damn, the nosy bastard had snuck back inside the house. She strode out of the bathroom toward the bedroom door. “Excuse me.”
Again the creak. She stepped into the hall. Nobody was on the landing.
“Mr. Chennault?”
She told herself she hadn’t imagined it. Again she heard men’s voices outside. She walked to the landing, where a picture window overlooked the street. The hairs on her arms prickled.
Beside his car, Chennault stood talking to the property manager.
Slowly she turned. Behind her, outside a hallway closet, stood a figure in fatigues and a balaclava.
Five foot eight, probably two- fifty, and breathing hard. Jo’s gaze went to his hands. Gardening gloves.
She ran for the stairs.
She sprinted, two steps, three, and heard him coming. His feet thumped on the carpet. Run, she thought. She leaped down the stairs two at a time.
A hand grabbed her hair. Her head snapped back.
She swung an elbow and hit padded flesh, heard his thick breathing, felt his meaty presence. His hand twisted her hair. She lost her balance, missed a step, and fell.
She threw out her hands and hit hard, knees to stomach to her face. The masked man grunted and toppled with her. They slid down the stairs and thudded against the hardwood floor.
He landed on top of her. His weight, his smell, were crushing. She squirmed, fingernails out. His flesh was soft and red around the collar. She clawed at his neck.
He lumbered to his feet and careened into the living room, hitting the wall as he ran. He threw open the plate-glass patio door.
Jo clambered to her feet and stumbled for the front door. Looking back, she saw the intruder flee across the backyard.
She threw open the front door. “Help.”
Chennault and the property manager looked up, startled, and rushed toward her.
Jo found her phone. Fingers shaking, she punched 911. She pointed at the back of the house. “Man in a balaclava. Ran out and into the trees.”
The property manager gaped at her, and at the open patio door, with seeming confusion. Chennault took the same long second, then put a hand on Jo’s shoulder.
“Are you hurt?” he said.
She had the phone to her ear. Her ribs were killing her. Her face had rug burns. She couldn’t swallow because her throat was bone-dry.
“I’m okay.”
Through the patio door, she saw movement. The bottlebrush trees were heavy with red blooms, and they swung as the man in the balaclava ran past. Chennault saw it too. He hesitated only a second before running out the patio door.
“Nine-one-one. What is the nature of your emergency?”
“An intruder just assaulted me.”
Jo ran after Chennault. He was already across the yard and running for the trees. Up the steep hillside, the rhododendrons rustled like a black bear was tearing through them.
She gave the 911 dispatcher the address. “I’m in pursuit on foot, with another civilian.”
Part of her thinking, what the hell was she doing? Another part thinking, Look around. Make sure there’s not another one. And what the hell am I doing?
“Stay on the line, Dr. Beckett,” the dispatcher said. “A unit is on the way.”
“Wouldn’t hang up for a million bucks,” Jo said.
She aimed for the trees.
15
JO RAN UP THE HILL BEHIND TASIA’S HOUSE, PHONE PRESSED TO HER ear. Her heart beat like a snare drum. Branches swung past her face. The hillside smelled of damp earth and the musk of the attacker’s clothing. Above her, the bushes swayed violently as the attacker bowled through them.
“He’s a hundred yards ahead of me, heading for the top of Twin Peaks,” she told the emergency dispatcher. “The other civilian is closer to him.”
Rhododendrons were dense on the hillside. Sunlight gashed through the leaves, looking unnaturally bright. Damn it. How had the guy gotten into the house?
Ahead, Ace Chennault muscled through the brush. Ungainly but purposeful, he closed the distance on the attacker.
“Chennault,” she hollered, “watch out for weapons.”
She put the phone back to her ear. “We’re heading toward Sutro Tower. How long for the unit to respond?”
“They’re on the way,” the dispatcher said.
The damp ground gave way beneath her feet. She pitched forward and her hand hit the slope. The attacker disappeared from sight, followed by Chennault. She heard them threshing the bushes. She put her arm up to shield herself from branches and plowed after them.
The hillside flattened and she came out onto a dusty field. Ahead lay eucalyptus groves, then a chain-link fence. Sutro Tower stood beyond it, a fulsome red and white in the sunshine, rising mightily three hundred yards overhead.
The attacker was following the fence line into the distance. He had a smooth stride and was surprisingly light on his feet, motoring toward freedom. Chennault sprinted raggedly behind him.
“He’s headed west. If he gets past Sutro Tower . . .” She tried to picture what lay beyond the antenna. Glades, more eucalyptus, steep ravines. “. . . he could lose us.”
She ran, beginning to blow hard. On the far side of the hilltop the attacker darted into a eucalyptus grove and dropped from sight over the lip of the hill. Five seconds later so did Chennault.
Jo passed Sutro Tower. “They’re in heavy woods, heading downhill.”
At the lip of the hill she slowed. The ground pitched harshly into trees and tangled undergrowth. The vine-covered ground was a morass of eroded gullies. A fallen eucalyptus, at least a hundred feet tall, spanned a ravine like a bridge.
Chennault was eighty yards ahead, pummeling downhill like he couldn’t stop. She didn’t see the attacker. In Chennault’s wake branches snapped and leaves crunched, but nowhere else. A black wire of warning spun around her chest.
She scanned the terrain. She had a rule: Listen to the whisper on the wind. Hear the still small voice that says, Watch out.
She cupped her hands in front of her mouth. “Chennault, be careful.”
He barreled onward, seemingly certain that he was still on the attacker’s trail—or maybe just out of control. He put a hand against a tree trunk to slow himself.
Behind him the attacker rose from a thicket. In his hand he had a rock the size of a softball. He whipped his arm overhead and smashed it against Chennault’s head.
Chennault staggered, crashed into another tree trunk, and toppled like an upended floor lamp into the ravine.
The wind snapped through Jo’s hair. She clutched the phone, horrified. “He attacked the man who was chasing him. Get the cops here. Hurry.”
“They’re coming, Doctor.”
The attacker stared into the blank space where Chennault had fallen. His shoulders heaved. The rock looked sharp and bloody.
“Get them to come faster.”
The attacker continued to stare into the ravine. Shit. How far had Chennault fallen? The attacker weighed the rock in his hand. Eyes downslope, he inched over the edge of the ravine. Dammit. Damn.
“A man’s down and the attacker’s moving on him again,” she said. “And I don’t have a weapon.”
Deep in the distance, a siren cried. Jo cupped her hands in front of her mouth and yelled down the ravine. “That’s the cops.”
The attacker turned. His dark eyes peered at her from beneath the balaclava.
Her voice sounded dry. She told the dispatcher, “He’s watching me.”
Fear whispered, Run. But if she fled, the attacker would have free range to finish off Chennault. She forced her legs not to bolt. The siren grew louder.
She gritted her teeth and shouted, “Hear that?”
For another moment the attacker stared at her. Then, without a sound, he tu
rned and disappeared into the trees.
The siren grew shrill. A police cruiser heaved into view. Jo pointed at the trees and yelled, “Assailant ran that way.” Then she scurried down the slope to the edge of the ravine. A trail of broken vegetation delineated Chennault’s fall line.
She couldn’t see him. “Chennault?”
From the depths of the ravine, beneath moss and fallen logs, came moaning. She sidestepped down the slope, hanging onto branches and crawling green vines. The shadows deepened. Above, the siren cut off and car doors slammed.
An officer called, “Are you all right?”
“Man’s hurt. He needs rescue.”
The moan came again, like the lowing of an animal. She followed the sound and found him half-buried in creepers and mucky earth.
God, scalp wounds were bloody. If she hadn’t seen the rock smash against Chennault’s head, Jo would have thought he’d been shot.
She crouched at his side. “Hold still. The police are calling the paramedics.”
“Damn,” he moaned. “Bastard brained me, didn’t he?”
Wild vines had wrapped around him. Beneath the copious blood his face was white. He tried to sit up, and screamed. His left arm was fractured and his elbow dislocated.
Jo gently held him down. “Stay still.”
“Make a great postscript for the book,” he said, and passed out.
16
WHEN JO GOT HOME THE SUN WASHIGH IN THE SKY. SHE PARKED the Tacoma beyond the park and hiked toward her house, feeling spooked.
Chennault had been evacuated by the paramedics to UCSF Medical Center. He couldn’t give the police much information about the attacker. Neither could she.
When her phone rang she grabbed it and peered at the display. A pang went through her, disappointment covering worry.
“So, have the police discovered how the guy got into Tasia’s house?” she said.
“The property manager opened the back door before you came,” said Amy Tang. “He snuck in while nobody was looking. Bigger question—who was he?”
“And what did he want?”
“Thief?”
“Ghoul? Somebody seeking relics to sell on eBay?”
The cool wind shook the Monterey pines in the park. A cable car clattered past, bulging with tourists. The gripman rang his bell.
“I have another question,” Jo said. “Will he be back?”
“Watch yourself.”
“You bet.”
She hung up but clutched the phone in her palm as she walked. Come on. Ring.
How could it be that modern life was saturated with communications devices, that the information age spewed gossip and barking commentary night and day, that the entire electromagnetic spectrum was alight with phone calls and texts and breaking news about celebrity boob jobs—but when she wanted news that the PJs of the 129th had safely touched down at Moffett Field, she was utterly in the dark?
She tucked the phone in her back pocket. A second later she pulled it out again and called Vienna Hicks. When she told her about being attacked by the intruder at Tasia’s home, Vienna said, “Holy crap, are you okay?”
“Aside from a rug burn on my face, I’m perfect. But Ace Chennault was taken away in an ambulance.”
“Poor bastard. The guy never did look like he could duck.”
Jo smiled. “Do you know anybody who might want to break into your sister’s house?”
She tossed it out like chum on choppy water, not really expecting an answer. She checked for traffic and jogged across the street toward her house.
“Maybe,” Vienna said.
Jo slowed. “Really?”
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Dr. Beckett. Can you meet me at Waymire and Fong this evening?”
“Certainly.”
“Bring your secret psychiatric decoder ring.”
“Want to clarify that?”
“Six o’clock. I’ll tell you when I see you.”
Jo saw the green VW Bug drive past at the same moment the driver saw her. The woman’s head swiveled sharply. She whipped a U-turn and double-parked in front of Jo’s house. The VW’s air-cooled engine squealed. Exhaust stank from its tailpipe. The driver climbed out.
The concrete beneath Jo’s feet abruptly felt hot. She didn’t move.
The woman marched toward her. “I thought you’d have a secretary, or an office at least, that would be open for normal business hours.”
She was slight and colorful, with bangly red earrings that clicked in the sunlight. Her hair was dyed skidmark-black, with a magenta streak along her forehead. She wore silver rings on her fingers and toes. Her T-shirt said MARKHAM PRINTING. Ink was her thing. She had a Gothic tattoo on her left forearm. SOPHIE.
She approached, scowling. “You’re Jo Beckett, aren’t you?”
She looked like a butterfly whose wings had been pulled off and sewn back on. Beautiful and damaged, struggling to stay airborne, and angry about it. She was Dawn Parnell, Sophie Quintana’s mother, Gabe’s ex-girlfriend.
Jo couldn’t conceive of a good reason for Dawn to know where she lived. Or to be there. Not a happy reason, not . . .
“Is it Gabe?”
“Yeah,” Dawn said.
The sun all at once seemed to hum, a high-pitched tone that drilled through Jo’s chest. “Did something happen?”
Dawn’s eyes were the hazel of a kaleidoscope, too bright, spinning with emotion. Not Gabe. Don’t tell me. Please, Jesus.
“Where is he?” Dawn said.
“Did they—didn’t the Wing tell you . . .”
“I’m late for work. My shift started at noon, and it’s his day.”
“What?”
Dawn pointed up the street, perhaps toward the print shop where she worked. “Gabe has Sophie during the week. But she got sick at school and the nurse couldn’t find him. So they had to call me. And now I’m late.”
“Wait.” Jo raised her hands. She heard the beseeching note in her voice. “Don’t you know where Gabe is?”
“No. That’s why I’m here.” Dawn said it slowly, as if to a recalcitrant child.
“You haven’t heard anything from his family, or the one- twenty-ninth?”
“No. And I can’t afford to miss my shift. I do that, I get docked. And if I lose my job, I get in trouble with the custody people.”
Jo’s heart was banging like a kettledrum. She felt like she was trying to grab a handhold on a wall of cotton candy.
“Nothing’s happened to Gabe?” she said.
Dawn looked at her crooked. “Except I can’t find him. I had to pick Sophie up from the school nurse’s office.”
Jo’s vision throbbed. Gabe was all right. She walked toward the idling VW. “Is Sophie okay?”
“Fever and vomiting. Stomach flu’s going around the school.”
Sophie wasn’t in the car. Jo stopped and figured it out.
Dawn crossed her arms. “I can’t take her to work.”
“Did you bring her here?”
“Gabe spends time with you, right?”
Jo turned toward her front porch. “Where is she?”
“I have to book. I’m already in deep with the boss.” Dawn marched back to the car. “You should tape a note to the door when you leave. Let people know where you are.”
“Where’s Sophie?” Jo said.
Dawn pointed next door at the redbrick mansion that dominated the street. “Your neighbor said she could stay with him until you got home.”
She opened the car door, and paused. Her gaze slid over Jo. For a moment, she seemed ready to comment on what she was looking at. Then she got in and drove away in a film of gray exhaust.
This is your mom. This is your mom’s brain on drugs.
Jo pressed her fingers to her eyes, trying to stop the hum and the heat and the acid pulse of the adrenaline that coursed through her veins. Be fair, she told herself. Dawn was monitored by the courts to make sure she was clean. To maintain her visitation rights with Sophie she had to s
ubmit to random drug testing, and she had to keep her job.
Dawn had been through rehab twice. She was eking it out, day by day, watched over by her parents. According to Gabe, they seemed at once broken and hopeful because their beautiful girl—who had enrolled at San Francisco State to study marine biology, dropped out when she got pregnant, and recovered from childbirth with a variety of self-chosen chemical pick-me-ups—was now living independently, and employed in a business that didn’t get raided by the DEA.
Gabe’s all right.
Maybe.
Jo walked next door to the mansion. From the balcony, plaster statues of Roman gods gazed down at her. As she climbed the steps, footsteps bundled along the hardwood hallway inside.
“Coming, Jo.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. Did he have an infrared Jocam that alerted him when she neared his porch? The deadbolt flipped and Ferd Bismuth opened the door. His eyes crinkled behind his glasses as he smiled.
“Of course you’re here. I told Sophie’s mom you’d come. I knew it.”
“Thanks for stepping up to the plate,” she said.
He ushered her in. “I couldn’t let Sophie wait on your front porch, for Pete’s sake.”
“But please, take off the surgical mask.”
He slumped. Reluctantly he unhooked the mask from his ears. “Come on.”
He led her toward the living room. The mansion had high ceilings, huge windows, and a staircase with a heavy wooden banister. Jo envisioned Bette Davis at the top of the forbidding stairs, dressed as Baby Jane, ready to pitch Joan Crawford from her wheelchair. Ferd lived in the mansion as a long-term house sitter. The owners had taken a nine-month trip to Italy. They’d been gone sixteen. If the Spitzers stayed away much longer, Ferd could gain squatter’s rights.
From the living room sofa, bundled under thermal blankets, Sophie gave Jo a finger wave. Pillows were piled around her like sandbags, perhaps in the event that she exploded. A can of 7UP sat on the coffee table beside packets of moistened towelettes and a box of latex gloves. Sophie’s chocolate-chip hair curled against her forehead with sweat. Her eyes, bright with fever, looked like glazed marbles.
Perched on the arm of the sofa was Ferd’s monkey, Mr. Peebles. He had a thermometer in his busy little hands.