The Tower

The camera cut to a shot of Leah and Robbie standing side by side, holding hands. Robbie was wearing an ill-fitting black suit and Leah a dark dress. Jade saw the wetness of the girl's cheeks beneath the broad-brimmed hat she wore. Some nondescript adults stood behind them, hands on their shoulders.

Jade's breathing quickened. The victims kept piling up like a weight pressing on his chest. The first ones hadn't been his fault, he told himself. He hadn't even been on the case yet. But now the father, the mother, the boy. He shook off the thought. That's not what he was here for. It wasn't in the job description.

Just points to be tallied, he reminded himself. Points to be tallied.

Chapter 42

" S I R, I'm afraid we may lose him." Travers drummed her fingers on the top of her briefcase as she addressed Wotan. "Have you looked at the photographs?"

A hand appeared in the thin light and lifted one photograph from the desk. It was a picture of Jade stooping over Linda Johnson's battered body, his eyes gazing at nothing in particular, yet seeming completely focused. It was an impossibly intense gaze, like that of a prophet descended from a mountain summit. The last three fingers of Jade's left hand were steeped in the bloody pool of Linda Johnson's mouth. The photograph also captured the horrified expression of an FBI agent in the background.

"Yes," Wotan replied.

"Well, sir, can't you… is there nothing odd to you about the picture?"

"He works on instinct, Agent Travers."

"Does instinct include touching evidence without gloves? And looking like Charlie Manson on crack?"

"Sometimes. Perhaps. I don't think one really knows."

Travers's voice didn't rise, but her tone betrayed her anger. "He's driving the field agents up the wall. He's a public relations nightmare-all the subtlety of Mussolini. We've had complaints from forensics, the press, even St. Mary's Hospital." Travers bit her lip and blinked rapidly several times, gathering her courage. "I'm not recommending dropping him from the case, I just think we need to rein him in a little. He's a loose cannon, sir."

"That's precisely why we hired him."

"Why are you so committed to him?"

"BECAUSE HE SUCCEEDS," Wotan boomed, causing Travers to jump back in her chair.

Wotan lifted the slug out of the marble ashtray and held it to the light. "Do you see this, Agent Travers?"

Travers was still stunned. She had never heard Wotan raise his voice, let alone yell. She didn't move a muscle.

"Do you see this?"

She nodded.

Wotan flipped it like a coin and banged it on the desk. "This is the roulette wheel to which we're all attached, Agent Travers. The divine deck of cards. Heads or tails?" He waited for a moment before asking again. "Heads or tails?"

"Heads, sir."

Wotan shook his head. "You just don't get it, Agent Travers. It's not that easy."

"Not that easy, sir?"

Wotan sat for a while with his hand covering the slug on the desk. "Do you think he's effective?" he finally asked.

Travers threw up her hands, frustrated. "Yes," she confessed. "I do."

"Do you think he's getting close?"

"Yes."

"Then with whom exactly are you arguing, Agent Travers?"

Travers opened her mouth, then thought better of it and closed it again. She looked at Wotan, but the room seemed to fade into darkness around the massive desk.

She rose to leave.

Through the living room window, Darby saw the mail truck pause at the end of the walkway before continuing up the street. She pressed her hands firmly to her eyes as she headed to the front door. It felt good, like scratching an itch. When she removed her hands, her vision dotted for a moment, then cleared.

The amount of pressure she'd felt over the past few days was so great that she sensed it physically, pushing in on her from all angles. She stepped outside, nodding to the agents parked up the street as she headed to the mailbox.

She flipped through the mail, pausing to examine one envelope in particular. Though there was no return address, she knew immediately who it was from.

Jade leaned over the kitchen sink and peeled an apple with a hunting knife he kept in the kitchen drawer. The weight in his hand felt better than that of a kitchen knife, more substantial.

As he raised curls along the knife's edge, he felt the firmness of the blade through the thin red skin of the apple. His hands moved quickly, like a chef's. When he'd worked his way around the apple several times, he flipped it over and deftly cored it with a single deep thrust and twist.

The doorbell rang and he went to answer it, still holding the knife in his hand. Travers stood on the porch looking out at the street, a newspaper in her hand. She wore a pair of jeans and a white shirt, loosely tucked in. He recognized the shirt from the last time she'd come over. Not a woman much interested in clothes, he decided.