The Tower

As he handed it to Darby, he took her gently by the wrist. "Your husband said he doesn't think Allander will try to contact you. Do you agree?"

The name unnerved her, as it had her husband, and her hand shook ever so slightly.

"We haven't spoken to him in years. I can't imagine what he would want from us now."

She paused, looking at Jade for a moment. "You know, Mr. Marlow, we've done a lot to move on, to integrate ourselves back into the community. A lot of charity work, social service-that was our road back to sanity. People don't forget things easily. So you'll have to forgive us if we're less than enthusiastic at the prospect of opening some of these doors again."

"Yeah." Jade nodded once. He ran his hand over the back of his neck. "If you need anything, please call me. Anything. Any hour." He glanced over at Thomas, who was studying the carpet. "Thank you both for your time."

Thomas looked up at Jade and his eyes were strikingly empty. "Good-bye." He snapped his head down again. "Good-bye, Mr. Marlow."

Chapter 26

A F T E R Leah slid her hand into the noose of the tape so that it gathered around her wrist, she worked it back and forth for what seemed like hours. Robbie whimpered as the tape chafed his skin.

Finally, it had stretched enough to allow Leah to slide her sweat-lubricated hand through, freeing it. She ripped the tape from around her eyes and left it dangling from her hair. After yanking on the remaining tape around her waist, she pulled out her other arm. Once she had both arms free, she kicked off her shoes and slid out of her pants rather than trying to extricate them from the coils of tape. She stood, feeling pins and needles through her legs, and pulled the tape from around Robbie's head.

His blue eyes watered as he squinted in the light.

"Before I untie you all the way, I'm gonna go get help, okay?"

Robbie was too weary to scream that he wanted to go with her, so he bit his lip and nodded as the tears began to spill down his cheeks.

Clad only in her shirt and underwear, Leah tiptoed down the carpeted hallway. As she rounded the corner to the living room, she screamed and sank to the floor, landing on her rear. Immediately, her legs began churning, backing her to the wall, away from the horror that lay in front of her.

The corpses of her parents lay grotesquely intertwined. The empty holes of their eye sockets gazed blankly at her like those of the skeletons she had seen on the pirate ride at Disneyland. Her mother's stomach had been cut open, and there was blood splattered everywhere-all over the walls, on the white blinds, on the fireplace and mantel, seeping into the carpet.

Smeared across the window overlooking the beach were the letters "S N E." The blood had crusted already, and was beginning to flake.

Leah ran back down the hallway to her room screaming, "Don't look, Robbie!Don't look at it! Don't look?"

The dam of Robbie's emotions broke when he heard the panic in his sister's voice, and fear overwhelmed him. He sobbed with complete abandon, twisting on the bed, his face swollen and red.

Leah ran screaming into the room and pulled the tape from her hair, not even noticing the sting as it yanked a clump from its roots. She fell on top of Robbie and stuck the tape over his eyes. The scream kept coming, "Don't be scared, Robbie! Just don't look! Don't look!"

Then she ran back down the hallway, closing her eyes when she again passed the room in which her parents lay. Feeling the rest of the way with her hands, she reached the kitchen and called 911.

It was quiet and the dimmed green lamps glowed across the dark wooden bookcases. The occasional clicking of footsteps was all that interrupted the perfect silence of the Josephine Public Library.

Allander's book list was set evenly in a black folder. Jade pulled it out, placed it on the big oak desk, and reviewed it again. He was amazed by its contents. Though the Tower restricted reading, Allander had checked out an incredible range of books during his time at Maingate proper. Library resources were unlimited at the main prison; officials even borrowed books from local libraries if the prisoners requested them.

It seemed Allander had read everything: Victorian literature, biographies of composers, art theory, legal journals, historical analyses. He had also read a number of computer journals, Jade noted. Even from within prison, Allander was trying to keep up with modern technology, probably so he could be self-sufficient if he ever escaped.

He scanned the rest of the list, his finger running down the page. One author's name appeared over and over: Sigmund Freud.

At first he didn't think it was so unusual; the study of psychology was encouraged because of Maingate's association with the Ressler Institute. But as Jade glanced down the page, he realized that Allander must have read Freud's entire canon. The materials by and about Freud far outnumbered those of any other author.