Turning his back on them, he moved toward Seth, who was clearly wearing down — Seth still tired easily, a result, the doctors said, of having lost so much blood on the night of the attack. In one bandaged hand, he was cradling a rubber ball his physical therapist had given him, barely able to curl the hand around it. Even so, he weakly squeezed it, doing his best to regain strength in his fingers.
Seeing Lefebvre approach, Seth smiled. There was a knowing look in his eyes, one that said he knew Lefebvre was displeased with all the hoopla.
It was at that moment that the alarm on someone’s watch played a little tune. It was shut off almost as soon as it sounded.
Seth’s already pale face lost all color — the look in his eyes became one of sheer terror. The ball dropped to the floor. Lefebvre hurried to his side.
“Easy,” he said, but this time Seth would not be soothed. Lefebvre saw a kind of desperation in him that had not been there since his first days in the hospital — the way he looked when he awakened from nightmares. “Seth, it’s all right.”
Seth shook his head, reached out to hold on to Lefebvre.
“What’s wrong?” Tory asked. “What’s wrong with him?”
Television cameras and lights turned toward the bed, and Polly Logan repeated the question, in a less frantic tone.
Fear, Lefebvre thought. “A little too much excitement,” he said. “Perhaps it would be best if we let Seth rest.”
“Detective Lefebvre is right,” Captain Bredloe said. “We need to let the boy have a chance to recover. I’m sure everyone here understands that Seth’s health must be our first concern.”
Lefebvre’s respect for the new captain increased when Bredloe suited action to word and courteously herded almost everyone out of the room, including Polly. Irene moved a little more slowly, watching Lefebvre and Seth with open curiosity. She met Lefebvre’s eyes and seemed to realize that if she pushed to stay around now, she’d anger him — and risk losing future cooperation from him. He was glad she didn’t say anything to him as she left. It would have only increased some of the friction he was encountering in the office, and Polly would have complained about unfair access for the Express.
Rosario, under Hitch’s watchful eye, didn’t look back at Lefebvre as she left. Even Tory Randolph found herself gently escorted away on the captain’s reassuring arm.
Lefebvre reached up, smoothing Seth’s hair in a calming gesture. “Better now?”
Seth still seemed frightened, but he nodded, turning to the computer. Lefebvre moved to read the screen:
He was here just now. In this room.
“Who?”
The killer.
“Whitey Dane?”
Seth shook his head and typed furiously.
No. Wrong man.
Lefebvre wondered briefly if this was some sort of setback brought on by the excitement of the day, but when he looked back into Seth’s eyes, he saw the young man’s need to be believed. “Tell me more,” he said.
Seth looked relieved and began typing again:
Doremi.
6
Thursday, June 21, 8:30 P.M.
Las Piernas General Hospital
Lefebvre paused, making sure Seth was sound asleep, then quietly stepped out of the room. The stocky guard was away from the door, chatting with the nurses down the hall. He saw Lefebvre’s fierce scowl and hurried back to his post.
“How’s he doing?” the guard asked, looking as if he wondered if Lefebvre had had all his shots.
“He’s asleep. If he awakens, Officer, you will please ask one of the nurses to let me know — a nurse, or anyone else, but you remain here at all times — understood?”
“I’ll stay right here, sir,” he said nervously. “Uh, where will you be?”
“On the patio, outside the waiting area — just over there.” He pointed to a tinted glass door at the end of the hallway. “I need a little air. I won’t be long.”
As he stepped out into the warm evening, he sensed movement to his left. Another door to the patio, leading to a separate corridor, swung softly shut. He walked toward it and pulled it open, but whoever had been on the patio must have moved into the nearby stairwell. He listened, heard footsteps going down the stairs, and walked back outside. He returned to the door he had used to enter the patio and looked down the hallway. The guard was still at Seth’s door, looking a little more alert than usual. Lefebvre hoped he had scared the crap out of him.
He took off his suit coat and stretched, looking into the moonlit sky, imagining how it would feel to take the Cessna up into this calm night. He had not flown since the day before the Randolph murders. Perhaps when Seth had recovered, he would take him flying.
He sighed, chiding himself for the thought. He was too emotionally involved in this case. That involvement began the moment he reached through that door on the yacht and felt Seth’s pulse. No — a little later, when he held Seth, and perhaps in some small way helped him to live, as he had not been able to help another boy…
But that was a long time ago, he scolded himself, and nothing could be changed by thinking about it.
Honest with himself about his own weaknesses, he had tried to stay away from most of the investigative work of the Randolph case, to involve others. But today — what Seth had told him today had shattered the delicate balance he had worked out between his protectiveness of Seth and his obligations to the department.
He heard a door open and turned to see Elena walking toward him.
“Phil? Is Seth all right?”
“Yes. He’s sleeping. Did you come to see him?”
She hesitated, then said, “Both of you. I worried about him this afternoon, but knew he would be all right if you stayed. I wanted to stay, too, but Hitch…”
“Hitch is worried that his partner spends too much time with Lefebvre and always watches how she acts around him now.”
“Yes, I thought you had probably picked up on that.” She moved closer, standing a few inches from him, at his side. She did not touch him, but he felt his skin warm at her nearness. It would be easy to touch her, so simple to lean a little closer.
“Seth has picked up on it, too,” he said, moving a little farther away.
“Seth?”
“Yes, but I think little escapes Seth.”
“Little concerning you.”
He shrugged.
“Are you sure he knows?”
“Knows what?” he asked, angry with himself for letting this conversation begin, let alone reach this point.
She was silent.
Lefebvre, you are an asshole, he told himself.
She began to walk away and he heard himself say, “Have you eaten?”
He took her to the Prop Room.
The place was crowded. “I’ve never been here before,” she said, looking around at the various airplane paraphernalia that covered the walls — including the propeller mounted on the wall behind the bar.
“Unless you count a couple of guys from the Air Patrol, it’s not a cop hangout.”
“Which is why you like it.”
“One reason,” he admitted.
A large woman saw him, called out, “Philippe!” and eyed Elena speculatively. After a brief, rapid-fire exchange of French with Lefebvre, she pointed to an empty back booth. They made their way through the crowd.
“I didn’t know you spoke French,” Elena said as he sat opposite her.
“My parents and sister live in Quebec. When Marie” — he indicated the woman he had spoken to — “lived there, she and my sister were friends.”
“So you’re French-Canadian?”
“My parents are Quebecois. I was born in the U.S., despite my father’s best efforts to get my mother back to Canada when she went into labor. I was born in Maine, so you see how close it was.”
She laughed. “And your sister?”