The angel had told her so.
But she also knew that Jessie Glass-Half-Empty was lurking just around the corner, waiting to pounce. Then the tears would come-as they always did-and all hope would be abandoned to the dark demons gripping her soul.
How long had she been down here?
Hours? Days?
She couldn’t even begin to guess. She had no real point of reference to latch onto. Her memories were a blur of disjointed events, like keyframes in some whacked-out animation timeline.
Focus, Jessie. Focus.
But it was hard, really hard. And before she could rein herself in — she was undressing in the back of the Suburban, the man with the ponytail watching her in his rearview mirror, his gaze crawling over her as she stripped down to her bra and panties. She hesitated, but he waved the gun at her. Wanted it all off. She swallowed, tears falling, then reached back and unhooked her bra. The panties came next. And after she stepped out of them, she felt more naked-more exposed-than she’d ever felt before.
Humiliated. That was the word.
His gaze continued its slow crawl, watching her instead of the road, and she was sure he would crash, she wanted him to crash, and — then she was in back of a cab again, the driver looking at her as if he’d never seen a girl in a school uniform and — wait, what was that? Gunshots?
— a hole the size of a dime opened up in the neck of a man in a Megadeth T-shirt, followed by the screams of the passengers. Or were they her screams? Someone grabbed her hair and pulled her toward the front of the bus and — now she was zipping up her backpack, Matt Weber glancing at her as he walked by, and before she could return the look, before she could smile — tape was wrapped around her hands and ankles, the man with the ponytail smiling at her as he lowered her into a narrow wooden box-only she wasn’t quite sure, was it Mr. Ponytail or Matt who was doing all that smiling?
Or maybe it was the angel. The one who came to her as she slept.
The angel had called her Jessie Glass-Half-Full.
“It’s okay, Jessie. Everything’ll be okay.”
Then she came awake to the mask cutting into her face and the cool rush of air streaming into her nostrils and the faint stench of fertilizer and the deadly silence, and she realized she had zoned out again and nothing had changed. She was still trapped in this godforsaken box, still buried beneath the earth, still thirsty, and, most of all, hungry.
She screamed and cried and bucked and kicked and tried desperately to loosen the tape around her wrists — and then she remembered the rain.
Her only link to the real world.
Had she already said that?
Focus, Jessie, focus. Gotta stay in focus…
Jessie?
Shhhh. Don’t bother her.
She’s sleeping.
28
Donovan had never been a religious man. Despite his Irish roots, he had been raised a Methodist, apparently a compromise between his father’s dubious Catholicism and the strict Southern Baptist upbringing his mother had been forced to endure. He and his sister had attended church and Sunday school as children, but no one in the family had ever taken their religious activities seriously, and their attendance had tapered off over the years.
Donovan’s tenuous belief in a higher power had been hammered out of him after his sister’s suicide and his days working Special Crimes. The evil he’d regularly witnessed had convinced him that no God could possibly be watching over us. The Founding Fathers had been right. Mankind had long ago been abandoned and left to fend for itself.
Yet, as he sat behind the wheel of his Chrysler, clutching the Lisa Simpson key chain, watching rain splatter the windshield, he sent up a prayer.
“If you are there,” he said quietly, “bring her home to me. Please bring her home.”
Leaning back in his seat, he closed his eyes to make it official, but he heard no voice in return, was given no sign that his message had been received. Despite the effort, his heart didn’t fill with joy or hope or the promise of a new day.
Which didn’t particularly surprise him.
What kind of God would let an innocent fifteen-year-old be snatched away like this? What Benevolent Power would stand idly by as a good, honest man was ripped to shreds by a land mine? What Heavenly Father would let a jackass cop destroy the only chance they had of finding a little girl?
Donovan felt nothing but fury. Toward himself, toward Gunderson, Fogerty, and toward a neglectful God who would never answer his prayer.
He sat up and started the engine, resisting the urge to jam his foot against the gas pedal and plow through anything that got in his way. There was a tap on the passenger window and Sidney Waxman stood outside, gesturing for him to roll it down.
Donovan did.
Sidney leaned in, dripping rain. “CPD’s been all over those tunnels. We got bupkis.” He paused. “You all right?”
Donovan just stared at him.
“Okay, dumb question. What’s our next move?”
“Pray forensics finds something in the Suburban,” Donovan said. “In the meantime, get CPD and the team topside, walking a grid, six-block radius, then expand from there if you have to.”
“What exactly are we looking for?”
“Any patch of earth you can find that’s big enough to hold a coffin. And don’t stop digging until you’re sure you’ve come up empty.”
“That’s a pretty tall order, Jack, especially in this rain. We’re gonna get a lot of flak.”
Again, Donovan just stared.
“Okay, okay.” Waxman raised his hands in surrender. “Anybody complains, I’ll break his balls.”
“See that you do.”
“And while I’m having all this fun, what’ll you be up to?”
“Driving,” Donovan said, and popped the Chrysler in gear.
So he drove, and drove fast, knowing that on these rain-slicked streets, every turn was an invitation to disaster. But driving was his therapy, always had been, even with cases that weren’t so personal. He’d reach a dead end in his mind and feel compelled to jump behind the wheel and drive for hours, endlessly circling the city as he worked the puzzle, looking for the break that eluded him.
But this time he had no desire to sift through evidence. All he wanted was to make his mind a blank, to forget he even existed in this screwed-up world where Evil was the true God.
He took a sharp right, splashing through a puddle, hearing the shouts of a cluster of angry streetwalkers as water sprayed over them. Traffic had slowed up ahead-late-night partyers on the way home-so he took another turn, a left this time, and found himself on a long, empty stretch of road; a stretch of road that would allow him to pick up speed.
He punched the gas pedal, the Chrysler’s beefy engine roaring. A VW Bug turned off a side street and pulled in front of him, going way too slow, and he swerved around it, angrily honking his horn.
He knew this was wrong, knew that he had to regain control of himself, but the fury he felt wouldn’t allow for compromise. All good sense had been abandoned to raw emotion.
Despite his best efforts to make his mind a blank, thoughts of Gunderson and Jessie continued to tumble through his head.
Taking out his cell phone, he speed-dialed Rachel’s direct line.
After two rings, she answered.
“It’s Jack.”
“Oh, God, I heard. I’m so sorry. I don’t know if Sidney told you, but a couple of guys from Washington have been hanging around and-”
“I know all about it. Right now I need your help.”
“Anything.”
“Transfer the Gunderson files to my laptop and meet me at my apartment in twenty minutes.”
“Why? What are you looking for?”
“Something we missed. Gunderson was smart, but he wasn’t exactly tight-lipped. Somebody else knows about Jessie, and that somebody is in those files.”