“Not very well.”
“Do you like her? Does she like you?”
“I guess so. Do you want me to stay with her?”
“If you’d be comfortable there.”
“I wouldn’t,” Emily said. Then she said, “Are you married?”
“...Married?”
“You are, aren’t you? You wear a wedding ring.”
“Yes, I’m married. Emily...”
“Then wouldn’t it be all right if I stayed with you?”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Why not? Doesn’t your wife like kids?”
“Sure she does. But she has a job, she’s even busier than I am...”
“I don’t mean for a long time,” Emily said. “Just for tonight. Wouldn’t that be okay? I don’t want to go anywhere else tonight. I don’t want to be alone with somebody else.”
I knew what she meant and I could not think of a way to say no: couldn’t quite bring myself to look at her. I stared out at the road and the mist curling and uncurling in the headlights. Time went by, what seemed like a lot of it.
“It’s all right if you don’t want me,” Emily said. “I understand.”
Goddamn it, I thought. I said gruffly, “Just for tonight. And don’t ever think you’re not wanted. Anybody who wouldn’t want a nice young lady like you around ought to have his head examined.”
“Thank you,” she said.
That mist out there was getting thicker. I had to rub my eyes and squint to see the damn road.
I called the condo, didn’t get any answer, and then called Bates and Carpenter. Kerry wasn’t there, either; her secretary said she’d gone out for drinks with a client. I waited a while and tried the condo again. Buzz, buzz, buzz.
Emily had been quiet for some time. I glanced over at her. For most of the ride she’d sat primly with her hands in her lap; now she was curled up on the seat, had done it so quietly I hadn’t even noticed, and was asleep with her head pillowed on one arm against the door. Poor kid; she probably hadn’t slept much the past few nights. She looked very small and fragile and vulnerable, and I felt a fresh cut of anger at what her family had done to her. Maybe I was a fool for taking on the role of her protector, but she needed somebody to look out for her, somebody to put her welfare first for a change. Why not me? I knew what it was like to be alone, all right; I’d been alone a lot of years before Kerry came into my life.
I tried the condo number a third time from Jenner, a fourth when I picked up Highway 101 north of Santa Rosa, a fifth waiting to pay the toll on the Golden Gate Bridge. Still no Kerry. Oh, babe, I thought after the last call, just wait until you see what papa’s bringing home for you this time.
Kerry beat us to Diamond Heights by about three minutes; she still had her coat on when I walked in with Emily. She couldn’t help but be surprised, but you’d have to know her as well as I do to tell it. Poise is one of her best qualities, and compassion is another. She did a better job of making the kid feel at home than I could have: introduced her to Shameless, showed her the guest room, fixed her a sandwich even though Emily said she wasn’t hungry and stood over her until she finished most of it, and then got her settled in the living room with the cat on her lap.
My turn, then. In our bedroom with the door shut she said, “All right, explain.” She didn’t sound upset.
I explained. In detail.
“You did the right thing,” she said. “You couldn’t just leave her up there alone — my God, no. Or take her to Greenwood and drag her around until you found somebody to care for her.”
“It’s just for tonight. Tomorrow I’ll talk to the Purcell woman—”
“No you won’t,” Kerry said. “Emily can stay here as long as she needs to. I’ll take tomorrow off so she won’t have to be alone. I don’t have anything pressing on the calendar.”
“You sure you don’t mind?”
“I’m sure.”
“Couple of mush-hearts, huh?”
“Never mind that,” she said. “You just find out what happened to her mother.”
17
Tuesday morning, early: a cold, gray day, fog and low-hanging clouds staining the rustic elegance of Greenwood with a gloomy brush. And nothing had changed on the Hunter property — gates open, house windows blinded, doors locked, alarm system activated, Sheila Hunter’s Audi parked in the garage.
Being there again depressed me. It was more than the sameness, the air of permanent abandonment; it was a feeling of hopelessness based on the truths I’d learned yesterday. Dream house and gracious lifestyle built on a foundation of theft, lies, and deceit. A home that was no longer a home to Emily. The only one she’d ever known and now lost to her forever, no matter what had happened to her mother, because her life was irrevocably damaged. It made me all the more determined to find Sheila Hunter, put an end to that part of the child’s anguish as quickly as possible.
The question was how.
Something in the house might give me an idea of where she’d gone and why; my best option right now, or it would be if I could get past that alarm system and inside. Frustrating that the thing was turned on...
Well, there was a way to shut it off, neutralize it. Sure there was, if I could set it up. Risky, but not very, and probably expensive, and if it worked out it would allow me to break-and-enter just like Samuel Leatherman.
I drove back to Greenwood Road and into a supermarket parking lot; better to make my call from there than hang around the Hunter property. The first name in my address book was the one I wanted: George Agonistes. I tapped out his combination home and office number. His wife, who doubled as his assistant, answered; George wasn’t home, but she knew me, and when I told her I had a job for him she gave me his pager number. I called it and then sat back to wait.
Agonistes was in the same business, but rivals we weren’t. His caseload was almost exclusively high-tech: electronic surveillance, debugging services, industrial espionage, that sort of thing. He could have served as the model for the Gene Hackman character in The Conversation, except that he had four kids as well as his long-suffering wife, two of them in college and one who kept getting busted for drug use; he was a workaholic because he always needed money. To hear him tell it anyway. He was a good guy for the most part — we’d done some mutual back-scratching over the years, always on a monetary basis — but a little of him went a long way. His two middle names were Poormouth and Cheap.
It took fifteen minutes for him to respond to the page. We exchanged the usual amenities and friendly insults, after which he said, “I suppose you need a favor. I never hear from you otherwise.”
“That goes both ways, George.”
“Well, you know how busy I am.”
“Sure. Don’t worry, Pm ready and willing to pay for what I want.”
“The magic word. You now have my full attention.”
“Simple job, won’t take up much of your time. I’ve got a place that has an armed alarm system and I need to get inside without setting it off. That’s it.”
“Uh-huh. Sounds like another illegal trespass, like the last job I did for you.”
“I’m not after bugs this time. And you don’t have to enter the premises with me. Or even stick around after the system is disarmed.”
“Uh-huh,” he said again. “I’m in the sensitive end of the business, remember? I get caught screwing around with alarm systems, I could lose my rep if not my license. I got mouths to feed, college tuitions to pay for, bills up the yang.”
The usual Agonistes lament. I countered it by saying, “Saint George. Never done anything illegal in his stellar career, never even once bent the rules.”