Gurney’s train of thought was broken by a flash of light at the edge of his vision. He went to the dining room window, which faced a narrow cleared area next to the house and, beyond that, the forest. He watched for a long minute without seeing or hearing anything unusual.
As he was turning back to the table, he saw again, out of the corner of his eye, a split-second glint of light. Was it an unwelcome visitor with a flashlight? Or a post-concussion glitch in his optic nerve? This time he watched for a good ten minutes, but there were no more flashes.
The oddity of the experience put him on edge—and resurrected the memory of the first oddity he’d experienced at the lodge, the decapitated rabbit in his car. Both experiences occurred while Valdez was absent, supposedly away on some errand. He could feel the first inklings of paranoid speculation taking hold, and realized he needed to find a way to ground himself.
Although he could imagine the reassurances Emma Martin would give him about Valdez, he decided to call her anyway. It was yet another reminder of how sorely he was missing Hardwick’s combative responses to the excesses of his imagination.
“Hello, David. Right on time.”
“Sorry?”
“Marcus Thorne just told me about your conversation. He got the impression that you felt you were on to something. Which made me think I’d be hearing from you.”
“Did he tell you the gem courier story?”
“He did. But he has no idea how it applies to our case. And neither do I.”
“I’m not saying it provides a perfect template for what happened. However . . .” Gurney went on to recount his theory that Lerman might have sought someone’s help in a conspiracy against Slade, but the helper then took advantage of Lerman like Jimmy Peskin took advantage of the courier to incriminate a competitor.
“You’re saying this individual murdered Lenny, specifically to frame Ziko?”
“I’m saying it’s a scenario that fits what happened.”
“Are you implying that this individual was a competitor of Ziko’s?”
“Possibly.”
“A competitor in what sort of business?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. You may not be happy with the answer.”
“Don’t worry about my happiness.”
“One business comes to mind. A business with big money at stake, a business that attracts people willing to commit murder, a business in which Slade had a history of involvement.”
Emma’s soft voice hardened. “The drug business was part of Ziko’s past. It was a closed door.”
“Is it possible that you might be mistaken about that?”
“Is it possible that one of us is dreaming and that this conversation is not really happening? Many things are possible, but too absurd to consider.”
“Okay, let’s take drugs off the table and back up a little. If the goal of Lerman’s murder was the framing of Slade, which now seems more likely than not, something big must have been at stake to justify all the planning and effort involved. ‘Something big’ usually means money, power, revenge, or all three.”
“I understand, but if this hypothetical framer’s goal was to put Ziko in prison, why have him killed?”
“My first guess was to prevent his release in the event of his conviction being overturned. But it could also be that putting him in prison didn’t achieve its intended goal, and his ‘suicide’ was the backup plan.”
That comment produced a silence.
Gurney changed direction. “I’ve been thinking about Ian. Considering his closeness to Ziko, he might be in some danger.”
“He’s aware of that.”
“He doesn’t seem worried.”
“He’s not.”
“You don’t find his lack of concern . . . suspicious?”
“No.”
“You trust him with no reservations?”
“Apparently you don’t.”
“My experience tells me to follow the money. Ian’s multimillion-dollar windfall from Slade’s estate could be a significant motive.” He didn’t mention that the same motive applied to Emma.
She uttered a dismissive little laugh. “Do you really see Ian as an all-powerful crime lord who can reach into a high-security prison and execute someone?”
“A lot of money can buy a lot of influence. And speaking of Ian’s money, do you know what he plans to do with his inheritance?”
“He plans to give it away.”
“Sounds very generous.”
“He’s afraid of having more money than he needs. He considers wealth a kind of poison.”
“You believe him?”
“Yes.”
“Hell of a lot of faith you’re putting in a former drug addict.”
“He’s not the person he used to be.”
“You know, not all conversions are what they seem to be.”
She laughed. “Of course not. Most are nonsense. Oily righteousness. Bible-waving for ego and profit. The truth is, the deepest conversions are the quietest. They occur when something is seen that wasn’t seen before, a profound personal truth. The result is a new gentleness, a sense of the preciousness of life, the importance of service. It’s more about listening than proclaiming.”
“That’s what you see in Ian?”
“Yes.”
The certainty in her tone made further questioning pointless.
He thanked her and ended the call.
He wasn’t sure what he’d learned—perhaps only that Emma Martin was a lot more confident than he was about Ian Valdez’s sainthood.
68
AS HE WAS SITTING AT THE DINING ROOM TABLE, PONDERING his phone call with Emma, a wave of anxiety swept through him. He went to the window that provided a view of the forest area where he’d seen—or thought he’d seen—the flashes of light. He waited for several minutes and saw nothing peculiar, but his anxiety continued to grow.
He retrieved his holstered Glock from the upstairs bedroom, strapped it on, then loaded the spare magazine and slipped it into his pocket. In the face of an unknown enemy, it provided only a dubious sense of security, but something was better than nothing.
The downstairs windows had no blinds or curtains, creating a feeling of exposure that made him uncomfortable. He searched the closets for a solution, found some tablecloths, and hung them over the windows in the front room and the dining room, affixing them to the wall above each window with duct tape he found in a kitchen utility drawer.
Looking around at the covered windows brought back a childhood memory of creating an imaginary fort from a card table draped with a blanket and crawling into it and sitting there in the sheltered semidarkness, entering a world of adventure in which the fort became a cave or a teepee or a boat and he was far from home, free to embark on whatever adventure occurred to him. Under that table, under that blanket, in that fort or boat, there was no fear, no arguing parents, only freedom and the future.
A shrill whistle of wind in the chimney brought him back to the present. And the present brought with it a renewed awareness of the precariousness of his position, a sense of loneliness, and the thought of Hardwick on life support.
He got his phone and called the hospital.
No change. Condition critical. Vital signs unstable. The nurse’s tone was terse and suspicious. Understandably so, since the patient was responsible for two shooting deaths.
Gurney went from room to room, upstairs and downstairs, checking the window locks and door locks. He started a blaze in the fireplace and tried to relax. He went to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee. He wondered when Ian would return. More critically, he wondered how much faith he should be putting in Emma’s opinion of the enigmatic young man.