She didn’t know.
All her life she had known or tried to know. Tried to be prepared, to be ready. Caches of weapons, food, money, identities, plane tickets. Bank accounts in other cities under other names. Long before she’d entered the service she’d planned for contingencies, never telling everyone everything, never saying where she’d been. Was that what scared her so about the Source? The wholeness of it, the uncontrollable nature of the threat?
Everything was possible. And there was nothing she could do to keep herself safe.
There has to be something, she told herself firmly. I just don’t have a handle on it yet.
Keep your head and you’ll be fine.
She unplugged the glue gun, wrapped it and its packaging in a newspaper, made sure there were no stray spots of glue anywhere. That could go in a trash-bin in the ladies room at the airport. Tickets? I.D.? Rental papers? DO NOT DISTURB sign to hang on the door when she left?
She checked them again, compulsively.
She realized she was afraid to go out of the room.
All the rules had changed. All the things she lived by were obsolete.
And worse to come, she thought, if she didn’t get back to McKay with this proof. If they-he-didn’t stop these people while they could still be stopped.
If they could be stopped.
She checked the parking lot one more time, took a deep breath. It was time to go.
NEW YORK-6:45 A.M. EDT
When he thought back on it, Cal Griffin was glad Luz Herrera’s four-year-old cut his foot on a piece of glass, so she stayed home that morning. But at the time, all it brought was the frenzy of one thing too many heaped upon far too much.
“No, no, senora,” he said into the phone, fumbling through his laborious Spanish, “esta… esta okay. Okay? De nada.”
She thanked him, promising to be there at two, to escort Tina from summer school at St. Augustine to the SAB’s afternoon and evening dance classes, then home again. Cal pushed away the question of where the pequeno Herrera was stashed on a normal day, and Cal returned home at ten or eleven to find Luz and Tina hunkered before the TV, his sister glancing up from a bent-double stretch, expectant and pleased.
I’m not worth that kind of welcome, his guilt scolded him. But it was one of the few moments in his current life that gave him any worth at all.
He turned from hanging up to see Tina in her leotard and tights, leaning against the kitchen door. She had been up since four, doing her homework, in order to keep the rest of the day and evening clear for her obsession, her bliss.
“Sorry, kiddo,” he said. “Looks like I’m your chaperon today. How quick can you get your act together, so we can get you to nun central?”
She groaned. She could get there and back alone, en avant et en arriere, no problem. I mean, come on, why did he and Luz keep insisting she was some kind of infant?
“Not a chance,” Cal answered, his thoughts flashing on all the assholes, muggers, and perverts lurking in this city of wonder and infinite possibility.
He knew he could put her in a cab and send her safely on her way; that this was the sensible choice. But he rebelled, chiding himself for the many absences, the shortfalls. He would walk her there himself, the young lawyer on the rise who rarely, if ever, mentioned her existence in the professional sphere. He’d punch in the time with her today, even though he couldn’t tomorrow or the next day or the next.
Tina shot him a scowl. But beneath her mock displeasure, he sensed her relief.
“Can I get us some coffee?” Without waiting for a reply, she headed for the counter. So light and fluid. Mom had been thin like that, fine-boned and graceful. Her legacy to Cal had been fair hair and deep-set hazel eyes. From their father, Cal inherited nothing. Tina had the man’s coloring and precious little else, even memories. Cal’s own recollections were fading fast, and just as well. In the years between Cal’s birth and Tina’s, he had been a hazy, inconsistent presence, an occasional and unwelcome guest.
“You know, NYCB’s dancing ‘Afternoon of a Faun’ in October. Reuben Almeida’s gonna be guest artist from the Royal.” Tina was pouring coffee, adding a dollop of 2 percent milk to her own while he punched in the number for Stern, Ledding and Bowen to tell the voice-mail he’d be late. “If you wanted, you and me and Luz could, well. .” She spoke casually but he heard the wistfulness in her voice, saw the longing in the quick glance she gave him.
He nodded, noncommital. It was absurd to make promises. Even now, his mind was dancing a frantic reel to make up the time, to reimpress on his unforgiving superiors his dedication. Through the earpiece, a canned voice intoned a litany of options. Impatiently, Cal punched buttons as it led him down its maddening labyrinth.
With a start, he realized Tina was still talking. He hadn’t heard a word. I’m not even here when I’m here. He was a ghost in his own life.
The beep on the voice-mail sounded just as the doorbell rang. In one of those horribly elongated moments, Cal saw Tina dart across the living room, past the practice mirror and the folded-back carpet to the door. He cried a warning, was in the room seconds behind her but too late, she’d whipped off chain and deadbolt and burglar bar.
A huge shape bulked in the open doorway, blocking the dim yellow lights from the hall.
“Listen, I’m sorry,” a phlegmy voice gabbled, “I know what time it is, Mr. Griffin, but I been up all night, that meeting today, I-your daughter?”
Irwin Schenk. Cal recognized the gray-stubbled basset face, the rumpled black suit. Four greasy strands were combed carefully over a shiny scalp.
Tina had fallen back, shy. Cal stepped protectively between her and the door. “Sister.” Cal took a deep breath. How had Schenk found where he lived? “It’s okay,” he said to Tina. “He’s a client. Why don’t you go get dressed?” She melted into the shadows of the hall.
“Look, I shouldn’t be here.” Schenk ran a flabby hand over his face.
Damn right you shouldn’t, Cal thought hotly, invaded. “It’s all right.” He heard his voice glide silkenly into lawyer mode. He gestured Schenk toward the one good chair, a recliner that had only one tear (hidden by the wall) and no wobble. As Schenk settled heavily into it, Cal stepped back into the kitchen, switched off the phone and poured out a third cup of coffee.
“So,” Cal handed Schenk the steaming cup. “You’re concerned about the meeting this afternoon.”
“I can’t sue my own nephew,” Schenk said desperately. “He’s all I got.”
Cal barely listened, studying the blossom of veins on Schenk’s nose and cheeks, the watery, scared eyes. As so often when in this guise, Cal felt curiously outside himself, observing the cunning machinations of a stranger. “Mr. Schenk, when we spoke, you said-”
“I was hurt. My brother left him the business for a good reason. I’m a fool!”
“Getting cold feet in these big suits-” Cal’s voice was a scalpel, precise, calming. He glanced beyond Schenk and stopped.
Tina stood in the hall watching, barefoot. Her eyes were wide, fixed on him with an expression of pained surprise, as if seeing him newly minted and counterfeit; they held pity and accusation.