My Soul to Keep Part 7

Dawit didn't make the decision right away. And when it came, it wasn't even a decision, really. It was a realization of what was to follow, a gently flowing current beneath him.

By ten o'clock, Jessica hadn't appeared at her office or left a message for him on the machine at home, and Dawit was anxious and more than a little frightened. The plate of beef stew and cornbread he'd brought her, wrapped in tinfoil, was only slightly warm now as it sat on her desk beneath the canopy of roses.

Her section of the newsroom, away from the commotion and light of the Metro section across the aisle, was deserted. The elite reporters don't work after dark, he surmised. He'd sat for a half hour undisturbed, unattended, growing more fretful as he watched the minutes pa.s.s on the clock overhead, and no sign of his wife.

He'd already exhausted the drivel in the U.S. News and World Report on her desk; the only thing that remotely interested him was a brief about Eritrean conflicts with Ethiopia, which made him marvel at how age-old quarrels could linger. But news of Ethiopia disturbed rather than comforted him. Recent signs of the Searchers told him that Khaldun wanted him back there, and soon he must go. He put the magazine away.

He didn't want to start moving Jessica's unmarked boxes without her instructions, so his eyes began wandering over her desk for lack of anything else to do. Her stack of folders was in front of his eyes, but he hadn't noticed them before. And he read, with the impact of a gunshot, Rosalie Tillis Banks.

Khaldun had said Mark me this: All words and deeds will find you, as a tightening noose finds the neck.

The sensation, at first, was like being yanked from the chair by his hair and flung headfirst into another existence. The Chicago world had never before crossed the Miami world, and yet his daughter's name was written before him like an indictment-and in his own wife's bouncy, feminine handwriting. For a full minute, as his mind lurched, he forgot to breathe.

He didn't touch the folder at first, fearing it was a hallucination, some visage conjured by Khaldun from his underground sanctuary. Khaldun was all-knowing, but all-powerful too? Was he a true sorcerer, as he and the others had always speculated? Was he even G.o.d himself, as more and more of his brothers, calling themselves Khaldunites, believed?

Dawit blinked several times, but Rosalie's name was still there. No, this was not Khaldun, he realized. This must be the work of a Searcher, intended as a cruel warning. Dawit's insides swelled with anger as he s.n.a.t.c.hed the folder into his hand.

He was not prepared for what he found. Jessica herself had requested this doc.u.ment from Cook County Police, according to the handwriting on the cover page. His lips grew dry as he read. This was the actual police report written after his daughter's murder, detailing the evening and all its events. The report mentioned a stranger, a black male, who asked for her the day she died. (His own fault; he'd only planned to visit Rosalie then, so he had not been careful.) He nearly dropped the papers when he read that a composite sketch was included-his face, his own face-and he expected his senses to flee, leaving him faint, when he flipped to the page.

This was him. He could see it. A crude drawing, and too dark to readily recognize his features from a facsimile, but he could make out the angles of his jawline and his tufts of hair. The original, somewhere in Chicago, would certainly d.a.m.n him.

Again, he wondered if sorcery was at work. How had this come to be? Why would Jessica know anything at all about Rosalie?

The answer was so simple, it was nearly fiendish. He'd killed Rosalie at a nursing home. Of all ironies, Jessica was writing about nursing homes. Was this not all the evidence he needed that Khaldun was a master of prophecy?

Sure enough, his deeds had found him. The noose.

Jessica's book would lead her to the truth. If she went to Chicago and found the report, wouldn't she certainly recognize her own husband's face? Might she already have seen enough traces to stimulate her curiosity? She might remember he had been very near Chicago, at the university, when Rosalie died. How would he explain this? How?

The Covenant, Dawit's mind screamed. No one must know. Dawit could not, under any circ.u.mstances, allow Jessica to continue her research. He closed his eyes, shutting out the inner voice that threatened, at any moment, to rip his life asunder.

"David? Jessica still not back?"

Peter. He knew the voice before he opened his eyes. Instinctively, he tried to shield the folder from Peter's view by closing it and resting his elbow on top of it.

"Not yet. You're working late." Dawit couldn't smile.

"I'm doing some record checks back in the library. Think I'll have to go soon, though. It's after ten. What smells so good?"

"I brought Jess some dinner. I wanted to surprise her."

Peter smiled in a way Dawit didn't understand, a nearly smug smile that infuriated him. This man, here, was the cause of his trouble. Yet, even at this time, the decision had not come.

"You're really too much," Peter said, walking to his own desk. He grabbed a notebook and began striding down the darkened aisle past him. "Oh, well. Back to work. Promised myself I could go home in ten minutes. You might try calling Jessica at your place. It's so late, maybe she decided to head straight there."

Did this mortal think he was a fool, stationed at Jessica's desk with a blind faith that she would appear? "I've been checking," Dawit said instead, keeping his tone even.

"I'm sure she'll be back soon. *Night, David."

"Good night, Peter," Dawit said. He forced the pleasantry from his unhappy throat.

Once Peter was out of sight, Dawit once again picked up the telephone to check his messages at home. This time, thankfully, he heard Jessica's voice: "David? Baby? Are you out in the shed? I hope you haven't left yet. Listen, I'm so sorry. My meeting is running way late. Let's forget about the boxes tonight, okay? I'm getting some great stuff. I'll be home by eleven-fifteen, I promise. At least we can have a night alone, right? See you soon."

Dawit stood, surveying the empty section of the newsroom once again. Certain he was not being observed, he took the folder bearing Rosalie's name to a large yellow trash bin in the hallway and buried it there. Then he grabbed the dinner plate from Jessica's desk and made his way through a winding hallway to the service elevator. The main lobby was closed this late at night.

When the elevator doors opened, he met a boisterous group of blue-shirted men from the print room, but they took no notice of him. By the time the elevator rested on the ground floor, he was alone. A young, bespectacled black security guard at the window waved him past. The guard had allowed Dawit into the building without identification, or even signing him in, because he had seen him with Jessica before.

"'Night, man," the guard said. "Wife ain't back yet?"

"On her way home," Dawit shrugged.

"'Bout time, I guess, huh?" the guard laughed.

Dawit had the minivan today, which he'd parked at the curb just outside the service exit. Jessica had driven the smaller red Tempo, the family's second car, which they usually exchanged according to need. He left the plate of food on the seat beside him, turned on the engine, and coasted out of the newspaper's main lot toward Biscayne Boulevard.

The newspaper had four or five parking lots, he noted. The one closest to the building was full and had a guard on patrol, even at this hour, but the outlying lots were deserted. Nearly deserted. It was only when Dawit identified a faded green Ford Mustang parked alone in the lot nearest Biscayne that the thought began to take form in his mind, with clarity.

The Mustang was Peter's car. Dawit knew it because he'd seen it so often parked in his own driveway. He and Peter had even discussed it at length; it was a 1968 model, and Peter was the second owner. The car was somewhat abused, and had long ago lost its l.u.s.ter, but it was still a striking machine.

Hardly a second had pa.s.sed before the thought became a plan.

Dawit drove two blocks past the lot and turned onto a side street lined with empty parking meters beneath coconut palms and yellow poinciana trees. He turned off the minivan's engine and headlights. Then he reached behind the seat for his toolbox, which he hadn't moved since tuning up Jessica's mother's car.

Dawit had perfect vision. He needed little light. His fingers deftly traveled without haste across his tools in their compartments. He pa.s.sed up his screwdrivers, his bolts, his chisels. He stopped when he found the linoleum knife.

He clasped the thick handle and ran his fingertip across the wide blade, which was hooked at the tip. He'd used this knife to cut the new kitchen linoleum he'd installed the year before. Flooring was difficult to cut. The blade was sharp.

He had found his tool. Next, he slid on his work gloves.

Dawit left his keys in the minivan's ignition and closed the door, careful to leave it unlocked. Then he began a quick pace toward the parking lot, where Peter's car was waiting.

He marveled at the work of Providence; that tonight, of all nights, Peter should be working late. That his car should be parked in an unguarded empty lot, impossible to miss. He had searched his mind for answers to no avail, and suddenly they were displayed before him with the simple logic of physics or mathematics. All of the variables were in place.

Was this not simply a fulfillment of his Covenant? Wasn't Peter bringing Jessica, and perhaps others, that many steps closer to learning the truth about his Life gift?

The driver's side door of the Mustang was locked, which surprised Dawit. He remembered Peter telling him one of his door locks no longer worked. Was it the pa.s.senger's side, then? Yes. He opened the door, and a faint light went on inside.

Immaculate, except for a few papers on the pa.s.senger's seat. No camouflage, unfortunately, but perhaps he wouldn't need it.

Dawit flipped the seat forward and climbed into the cramped backseat, closing the door behind him. The bucket seat clicked when pulled back into place. In darkness, Dawit crouched as far down as he could across the leather. It smelled of mildew down there, perhaps from some long-ago rainstorm, but Dawit grasped the knife and ignored his nose. He was satisfied that he was hidden.

How odd, Dawit thought, that he felt no fear. He'd felt none with Rosalie, and he felt none now. Surely he must have felt nerves at one time, a time he'd forgotten, but all fear had left him now in a.s.sociation with this particular task.

Exactly twelve minutes pa.s.sed before Dawit heard a footfall on the concrete beyond the parking lot's gate. Then he heard a sc.r.a.ping of soles on loose gravel, closer yet, until jingling keys signaled that his prey had come to him at last.

Peter unlocked the door, tossed his briefcase to the pa.s.senger's seat, and climbed inside his car. He slammed the door behind him. Dawit was keenly aware of Peter's human presence now, the scent of his perspiration and sweet-smelling cologne. This is a man, Dawit reminded himself. You, too, are a man. This made them brothers, and he must respect this, Covenant or not. Peter had no immoral designs on Jessica. He only cared for her deeply, wanted to help her, much as Dawit did. There must be no joy in this.

For some reason, Peter sat still without slipping his key into the ignition. The closed vehicle was filled with a palpable, nearly physical, silence. Their shared presence mingled, at some level, knowing. Knowing.

If he wanted to, Dawit realized, he could give this mortal the scare of his life with the mere whisper of a word. They would both laugh heartily and allow this moment to drift behind them unlived. In those three to four seconds, knowing that he was presented with this choice, Dawit felt giddy with power.

Peter did not turn around even when Dawit sat up behind him. Instead of staring at the movement in his rearview mirror, Peter's gaze was directed at his steering wheel, reflecting. His bent form and submissive countenance seemed to be saying I know why you are here, what you must do, and I accept my fate in your hands.

Whether or not this was only in Dawit's imagination, it granted him the instant's resolution to swing his right arm around, almost as if to hug Peter, and sink the knife's hooked blade into the soft of his throat. Peter's entire frame froze and his head sank back slightly as he made a strangled sound. Dawit, using all his strength, carved the knife across the length of Peter's neck in a swift motion, through his larynx, his thyroid cartilage, his taut muscles. He felt warm blood seep through his glove, touching his fingertips.

Only now, through pure instinct, did Peter's hands fly to his throat, as if to try to pull the knife free. Dawit helped him, yanking the hooked blade loose from his torn flesh. Peter bent over the steering wheel, his chest hitting the rim but missing the horn. Blood from his opened arteries was spraying forward, painting the windshield red. Dawit felt hot droplets across his own face, even sitting behind Peter. Then, with an unpleasant gurgling sound, Peter thrashed backward in his seat, his weight giving Dawit a severe jolt.

"Be still. Let death come," Dawit whispered, feeling for him. He'd had his own throat slashed twice by lucky opponents, and he could well remember the astonishing horror of it, to be mortally wounded while fully conscious, unable to speak. Even to one who would reawaken, death was a traumatic surprise.

"Let it take you," Dawit breathed, close to Peter's ear.

As if in response, the horn sounded feebly as Peter's elbow brushed across the wheel and he slumped to a p.r.o.ne position across the pa.s.senger's seat. Peter's body spasms and twitches now were only nerve impulses, Dawit knew. He had killed again.

Dawit had no time for reflection. He glanced at his shirt and found it spotted with blood, and his right glove was damp and heavy with it. The smell of blood was so thick in the car, it was nearly smothering. Dawit strained against Peter's weight to push the pa.s.senger's seat forward and reach the door handle. With much effort, he climbed out of the car. Squatting beside the vehicle, he took off his gloves and hurriedly unb.u.t.toned his shirt, using it to wipe his hand as clean as possible, then his face, and he wrapped the knife and gloves inside the soiled cotton.

The night air filled his lungs, replenished him. Some blood still clung to his skin, but not nearly so much as he'd feared. The smell was behind him, in the car, in Peter's tomb. Dawit heard traffic pa.s.sing on Biscayne Boulevard just beyond the trees, but no one was in sight except, in the opposite direction, a few employees walking into the newspaper building from a closer parking lot.

As he crept in darkness toward his parked minivan, he pulled off his undershirt and wrapped that too around the b.l.o.o.d.y weapon. These would have to go in the backyard toolshed for now, until he could dispose of them somehow. Maybe in the river? He opened the van door and searched the floor for something he could wrap them in. A wrinkled plastic Publix shopping bag was shoved under the backseat. He fit his b.l.o.o.d.y bundle inside, put the bag next to Jessica's dinner plate, and started the engine.

Only 10:38. He would be home in fifteen minutes, or less, and he would beat Jessica with time to spare. That would give him time to shower. It would all work fine.

When traffic was clear at the stop sign, he drove off. He turned on his radio and found jazz playing on the public station. Billie Holiday was singing "Crazy He Calls Me." He turned the volume up high and sang along, surrendering his thoughts and deeds to the cleansing power of the music.

Peace. Yes, peace. In music, he found peace.

11.

Running and running and running.

Jessica was lost in an exhausting dream about being chased with Kira. Kira was running far ahead of her, and Jessica flung out her arm to try to catch her. But she was too late, too late. Mommy, Kira called back to her over her shoulder, are there good monsters, too?

Jessica flipped over, waking, when David pulled his arm from beneath her to grab the ringing telephone. She felt agitated, not rested. It wasn't dark, as she'd believed. The sky, through their open curtains, was shedding its ink-blackness for the mingled gray and pink of new daylight.

"What time is it?" Jessica asked grumpily.

David shushed her, patting her leg beneath the blanket. "This is her husband," he was saying to the caller. "Who is this? ... Okay, one sec. Jess? Honey, it's Sy Greene."

Jessica glared at the oak grandfather clock ticking against the wall across from their bed. She thought she'd left her days of being awakened by her boss long ago, back when she chased fire engines and was eager to please.

"Does that clock say six?" she asked with disbelief. "I know it's not somebody calling here at six o'clock."

"Ten *til," David said, dangling the receiver near her face. "Honey, phone ... Please?"

Jessica took the receiver. She didn't have a chance to say anything. She heard a m.u.f.fled sound that she didn't recognize. After a moment, she realized with numbing trepidation that her boss was sobbing into her ear.

PART TWO.

Spider.

12.

At the start of her fourth month carrying Kira, in the bathroom, Jessica struck a deal with G.o.d: Make this bleeding go away, make it all right, and I will serve you for the rest of my life. No more of this half-a.s.s church only on Sunday stuff. She vowed she would teach Sunday school, she would t.i.the, and she would never again think an un-Christian thought about anyone.

G.o.d, please just give me this baby.

She and David hadn't known, at that time, whether the child was a boy or a girl. But Jessica did know she had pa.s.sed her first trimester, supposedly out of the woods for miscarriage, so she'd begun visualizing a real baby instead of a faceless, fragile embryo. When she stroked her stomach, she was stroking a child's head. If she felt a movement, anything at all, she spoke to the baby in response.

Is that you? You're growing, baby, aren't you?

So it was really the child, not she, who was bleeding.

Jessica was about to take a shower before going to work when she saw the brown spots of blood on her toilet paper. She wiped herself again, and this time the blood was clotted and fresh. It was red.

She screamed for David, and he came. He told her later he'd never been more scared, but she didn't see it in his face. He hugged her, giving her a robe, telling her it was okay, telling her not to cry. He called the obstetrician. He drove her to the hospital, rattling off a.s.surances. "You're not in pain. You're all right. They'll fix it, Jess," he kept saying.

As it turned out, her placenta was hanging a bit too low. The doctor warned her that she would have to lie flat on her back for the next few days because he couldn't correct the condition. It would have to correct itself. If she hemorrhaged, he could not save the baby.

That was the first time Jessica, as an adult, really felt the fresh horror and helplessness of what it would mean to lose a person she was close to. In the moments her doctor described what was wrong-in the time between his warning about hemorrhaging and his rea.s.surance that it was a common condition and she would probably be just fine-she felt a cruel randomness poised to slice away a part of her psyche.

And the question came: Why would G.o.d do this?

Because her faith was weak, she decided later, as she rested. Her faith was so weak and bare, it was ready to shred at the first sign of trouble. Feets, do your thing. She needed to trust Him. He wouldn't let her crash into the wall; He would steer her around.

And, yes, He had. Kira was the living proof.

"That's not me," Kira insisted, wrinkling her face when she saw a photo of Jessica holding a bright-red newborn in a hospital bed. Kira had started emphasizing words in sentences, enjoying the sound of her own conversation. "That's a Gremlin."