The Tower Part 24

"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 ma.s.sive 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.

Her hair was still pulled back in a ponytail, but several strands had escaped and curved down the side of one cheek. She turned to face him, and the morning sun shone across her blond hair, catching its golden highlights. She smiled, lips parting back from perfect white teeth.

Jade bit the apple because he couldn't think of anything to say. She entered the house, brushing his shoulder with hers. As she pa.s.sed him, she impaled the newspaper on the hunting knife.

"Smart move, Marlow."

Jade was surprised that there was no sarcasm in her voice.

He pulled the newspaper off the knife and opened it. The brightly colored headlines betrayed that it was a tabloid-The Globe. Half of the front page was taken up with a color photograph of Jade and Darby standing in the doorway of the Atlasias' home, Jade's arm across Darby's shoulders. "Jade Marlow's 'Private Investigation' of Allander Atlasia's Mother." "True Details of the Daring Affair Inside!" the subhead screamed.

When he entered the living room, Travers was sitting on the couch, flipping through a legal notebook. On it, Jade had profiled all the victims' personalities from information he had pieced together from the houses, and from friends and neighbors. He needed to know how they had reacted to Allander; that might help him to understand his actions.

"Excellent move, Marlow," she said. "The photo. Creates an urgency and an attraction for him."

"Urgency is what I'm hoping for," Jade said. "Right now, he has us just waiting for him to move again. I want to light a fire under him and get him moving."

"Moving where?"

Jade shrugged, averting his eyes.

"I guess that's the challenge, huh?" Travers said, continuing to flip through the notebook. "How'd you come up with that? Putting your arm around Darby?"

"I thought about the emotion that most overwhelms him."

"Rage?"

Jade shook his head. "His rage he can control."

"What then?"

"Jealousy."

"Of whom?"

"Not of whom. Of what. Of his mother's attentions. Of her time. Of her person. That's his Achilles' heel. His jealousy."

Travers smiled, and for a moment Jade thought he detected a softness in her eyes. "At times, Marlow, I almost like you. But don't quote me on that."

"I won't." Jade grinned and lowered his eyes. When he looked up, he started to say something else, then stopped himself.

"What?"

"Nothing." He shook his head. "Where were you this morning? I tried reaching you."

Travers shrugged, glancing at the notebook. "Ch.o.r.es."

"Yeah, you strike me as the real housekeeper type."

She pretended to be absorbed in his notes. After a few moments, she didn't have to pretend. Underneath the personality charts in the notebook, Jade had written the information from forensics. Nothing much to match right now-no traces of dirt or carpet fibers. Since Allander wasn't settled into a base yet, it wouldn't help that much anyway. Given the time frame, he had moved almost directly from the first house to the second, with a quick stop at Jade's. Jade bet he'd move to a safe zone for a while now. To wait. To plan.

Travers looked at Jade's extensive notes, flipping over page after page of his comments and thoughts. One of the last pages was filled with scribbles and doodles that he had made while he did phone work.

Travers stifled a smile. It was just like Jade to confine his doodling to one page.

Jade crossed his arms, facing Travers's back as she looked through the notes.

Hidden in the doodles were the names of the victims: "Henry Weiter." "Janice Weiter." "Linda Johnson." "Theodore Johnson." "Earl Johnson." They were written in a scrawling hand, much different from Jade's usual neat writing.

"It was tough there yesterday," she said over her shoulder. "The bodies . . ."

Jade shook his head, inhaling deeply. "I missed. Just missed."

She turned to him and a look of understanding pa.s.sed between them. Her eyes lit with a sudden realization. "It's not your fault, you know," she said softly. "There was nothing you could do."

"I could've gotten there earlier. I could've figured out where he was heading. I could've been here waiting when he stopped by my house. I could've-" His voice broke off. He opened his hands and turned them to the ceiling before slapping them against his hips.

Travers rose and walked slowly over to him. She placed her hand gently on his side. Jade admired how her hair curled around her neck. The edge of her palm was on his stomach, her fingers resting tenderly across his ribs. He lowered his eyes and cleared his throat awkwardly. "I had a . . . brother who died when I was younger."

Travers's forehead wrinkled with sympathetic lines. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well, aren't we all." Jade scratched his forehead at the hairline, blocking his eyes with his wrist. "It was my fault. He was r.e.t.a.r.ded. I was supposed to be watching him." He took a step back. "Allander's story broke the next week. His kidnapping. I remember that the outpouring of public support made me f.u.c.king ill. It was a lot . . . more. My brother, that wasn't such a big deal because he was just a r.e.t.a.r.ded kid."

Travers took a small step forward, raising her hand to Jade's face. Just before it touched his cheek, the phone rang on the coffee table, startling her. Jade stood motionless for a moment, his eyes on hers. He walked to the phone slowly, picking it up on the fourth ring.

"Yeah?"

"h.e.l.lo, Mr. Marlow. This is . . . this is Darby. I got something in the mail today."

Jade leaned forward, speaking intensely into the phone. "Is it a body part?"

A nervous laugh. "Oh, no. Nothing like that. Just a broken pencil. Looks like an eyeliner. It's probably nothing, but it came in a plain white envelope and I just thought-"

"Did you show the agents there?"

Darby laughed. "No. I don't find them very personable."

"All right. I'll be right there," Jade said, hanging up the phone. He turned to Travers. "Let's go."

On his way out, he grabbed the entertainment section of the newspaper from the kitchen table and jammed it in his back pocket.

It was time.

Pushing the gas pedal to the floor, Jade raced onto the highway heading toward the Atlasias.

"f.u.c.k! I should've known."

"Known what? What's going on?"

"Trophies. He's mailing her trophies from his victims. It's common, really common. Gives him a thrill, mixing his world with theirs. Allander's linking them to the model of the monkeys. An eyeliner-has to do with the eyes. 'See no evil.' Family number one. I bet she gets lipstick from the second killing."

Travers shook her head. "Who cares? So he's sending her trophies. We already knew she was marked. It doesn't help. Why are we racing over there?"

"It's time to light the fire."

"What? What fire?"

"Under Allander. The one that'll get him moving."

"I already asked you-" Travers cut short her question and her jaw dropped. "No. You wouldn't. Even you."

Jade looked straight ahead at the road. "Come to Mama," he said.

"No way. We just increased protection on them," she said. "Everywhere they go. He's not stupid. There're too many men."

He looked over at her and groaned. "Jesus Christ, Travers. We'll pull them off."

"Excuse me?"

"Believe me, I'd like to."

"You're going to risk their lives to lure him in?"

"You're a quick study."

She laughed a single note, completely unamused. "Are they people, Jade, or instruments?"

"Let's be honest, Travers," he scowled. "What's the difference?"

"Don't you care about them? Any of them?" She shook her head and another disgusted laugh escaped her.

"I only care about one thing right now. And that's catching him."

"And you don't care who you have to kill to do it?"

"Risk, Travers. Don't you mean 'who I have to risk'?"

"And why, exactly, is that your decision?"

"Because no one else wants to make it."

They sped between two large trucks on the freeway, the noise rising as they pa.s.sed them, then fading away.

"Christ, Marlow. I thought you liked them."

"I do like them. What the f.u.c.k does that have to do with anything?"

"Pull over."

"What?"

"Pull over. Let me out. I'm not doing it. I'm having no part of this."

"Oh, for f.u.c.k's sake."

"PULL OVER! Now."

"With pleasure," Jade snarled. He yanked the car over onto the shoulder of the highway and skidded to a halt. He was off again before she could slam the door behind her.

43.

T H I S time they sat in the kitchen. Thomas prepared dinner, washing salad and whistling along with Beethoven's Pastoral symphony. Darby sat at the kitchen table across from Jade, her elbows resting on the white tablecloth. She closed her eyes and let her head sway from side to side in time to the music.

"I love this," she said. "'The Shepherd's Song.'"

Jade sipped his gla.s.s of water. "It is nice."