Bodily Harm (27 page)

Hotchkin didn’t immediately answer.

“Once I get the information, you’re out of this, Ed. I’m trying to be reasonable here. Don’t force me to do something I don’t want to do.”

Hotchkin sat on the edge of the bed looking defeated. “I was given a number to call. No one answered, but I was told to leave a message.”

“What kind of message?”

“Just my telephone number. I had to answer a question when he called back.”

“What was the question?”

Hotchkin lowered his head. “‘What comes but once, can’t be avoided, and ends as soon as it begins.’”

“And the answer?”

“‘Death.’” Hotchkin said.

“I want the number.”

Hotchkin shook his head. “I don’t have it anymore. I threw it away.”

“I don’t believe you. A guy like you who can’t keep his pecker in his pants isn’t about to throw away his lifeline.”

“I did. I don’t have it anymore.”

Jenkins stood and started for the door. “Then I guess we’re done here. Sorry we couldn’t do business. Make sure you check out the front page of the
Washington Post
tomorrow, and YouTube. The Internet can really get those videos out there fast.”

Jenkins got halfway to the door, which was a lot farther than he thought Hotchkin’s game of chicken would last.

“Wait.”

Jenkins turned. “You have something you want to say?”

“If I give you his number you have to be certain he does not trace it back to me. You’re wrong about my ever calling him again. I won’t. I don’t want anything more to do with him, and if you were smart, you wouldn’t either.”

“Agreed. Here’s how this will work. I’ll give you a number to call. You will call and leave the telephone number after the message. If I find out you gave me a fake number, Ed, you’ll have a bigger problem than him.”

Hotchkin smirked. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

“To the contrary, I now know exactly who I’m dealing with. He’s the one who’s going to be in the dark this time.”

THE WASHINGTON ATHLETIC CLUB
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

MENTALLY EXHAUSTED, SLOANE returned to his hotel room and sat by the window, the ambient light casting half his face in shadows. He had still not been back to Three Tree Point. He had relied on Jenkins to retrieve needed clothes, and now that Jenkins was back east, he had bought what he needed.

Nights and mornings remained the most difficult. He filled the days with the only thing he knew, the only thing he had ever known before Tina and Jake—his work. His resolve to take down Kendall Toys and Malcolm Fitzgerald kept his mind occupied until the point of exhaustion, usually well past midnight. But by the time he finished the short walk back to his hotel room the memories of Tina and Jake swirled in his head, and the depth of his pain, and guilt, kept him from sleep.

IT WAS STILL dark out. Sloane slid from bed and slipped on running shorts, a T-shirt, and sweatshirt. He closed the bedroom door behind him and walked softly downstairs. In the kitchen, Bud jumped onto the counter to greet him. It wasn’t love. Bud wanted to be fed. Bud always wanted to be fed. It was a bad habit Sloane began when he first rescued the cat, feeding him at all hours of the day and night, not knowing he was establishing a pattern.

“Sorry, Bud, but Tina says you’re too fat. This is her domain. Have to put you on a diet. One meal a day.”

The cat mewed.

“Don’t I know it, brother. She’s got me eating almonds and flaxseed.”

He made himself a cup of tea and sipped it while allowing his body to wake. After ten minutes he had put off the inevitable as long as he could, slipped on his running shoes and pulled open the door, stepping out into the morning cold and dew.

He was not one of those people who looked forward to getting up at the crack of dawn for a crisp five-mile run. He had yet to ever get the adrenaline high runners claimed kicked in. His was a five-mile slog that took every ounce of discipline to keep him from turning around and heading back to bed. He forced himself to do it because his ego would not allow him to be fat. Tina was five years younger with the metabolism of a teenager. Tall and fit, she could still eat just about whatever she wanted, with minimal consequences. That was no longer the case for him. He worked out at the Washington Athletic Club downtown, but the treadmill became monotonous, and he couldn’t even think about a basketball game or racquetball match without twisting an ankle or pulling a muscle. Running the streets of Burien was his next best option.

The dampness cut through his clothing and he shivered, as if someone had dumped an ice cube down his shirt. Pulling a stocking cap over his head and a pair of thin gloves over his hands, he did windmills with his arms to generate body heat as he pulled open the gate, stepping through to the easement.

“About time you got here.”

Sloane startled and immediately balled his hands into fists. Jake stood in the easement.

“Jake? You scared the hell out of me; what are you doing up so early?”

“I’ve been waiting since six.”

“For what?”

“For you. You said you were running at six. It’s now six-ten.”

Sloane noticed the boy wore sweats and running shoes. “You want to go running?”

“You said I could.”

Jake had brought up the subject the night before, but Sloane hadn’t taken him seriously. “I thought you were kidding.”

Jake started back for the gate. “It’s okay, never mind.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on there. I didn’t say I didn’t want the company. I’d love to have you join me.”

They started down the block at a slow pace and ran along the street parallel to the Puget Sound, their feet slapping the pavement in unison.

“So why the sudden interest in running?” Sloane asked, breathing hard and waiting for his wind to kick in.

“I thought I might go out for the cross-country team,” Jake said, not sounding at all winded. Nearly thirteen, Jake was not the most coordinated kid, and athletics did not come easy. He was tall for his age, already five nine with feet nearly as big as Sloane’s. It was taking time for his skills to catch up to his growth. Junior high had been a transition, and Sloane sensed that Jake wanted desperately to play sports but was anxious about trying out.

“No kidding? I thought you wanted to try basketball?”

“I don’t know,” Jake said.

“Something bothering you?”

“I’m not very good. Mom has taken me to play a few times but . . .”

“You like to play?”

The boy’s face lit up. “Yeah.”

“Well, I know a pretty good coach. He played in high school. Started on the varsity and once scored twenty-two points in a game.”

“Really? Who?”

Sloane laughed. “Me.”

“No kidding?”

“Is that so hard to believe?”

Jake shrugged, smiling.

“What do you say we go to the gym tonight and get started?”

“That would be awesome.”

Sloane looked up. They were coming to one of two very big hills. “Race you to the top,” he said, but Jake was already three steps ahead of him.

SLOANE WOULD GIVE anything to have just one of those mornings again. He’d give anything to turn back the clock and simply decline Kyle Horgan’s file. Nothing that had transpired from that one simple act had been what he intended, but had he been blind to the unintended consequences? Had he dismissed them because, as Tina said, he felt the need to try to help
everyone?

But even as he thought it, he knew he had not been wrong to take Horgan’s file. The autopsy of Austin McFarland proved it. The toy was dangerous. Children were at risk. Tina would have told him to take the case. He knew it in his heart.

So if he had done nothing wrong, why then did she have to die? Why was it always someone he loved? First his mother, then Melda Demanjuck, his Ukranian neighbor when he lived in Pacifica, and now Tina. Why had every woman he had ever loved died a violent death?

Tina had told him that he was her soul mate, that nothing would ever separate them.

She was wrong.

His cell phone rang. In a daze from fatigue and grief, Sloane found it on the floor by the chair and answered without considering the time or the caller. It didn’t matter anymore. The hours and the days bled together without distinction.

“David?”

His heart skipped a beat, and for a moment he could not speak. Was it a dream? Had he fallen asleep in the chair?

“Jake?”

“Hey, David, I just wanted to call. I had to wait until everyone went to bed. They won’t let me call you.”

He didn’t know what to say. “How are you, son?”

“I miss you, Dad.”

He fought back the tears. His voice choked. “I miss you too, Jake, more than you can imagine.”

“I want to come home. Can I come home?”

His hands shook. As much as he wanted to get on a plane and bring the boy home that night he knew he could not. He knew he had to do it the right way or risk losing Jake forever. He needed to be strong and he needed Jake to be strong. “Yes. I’m going to get
you home, Jake.”

“When?”

“As soon as I can, son. We have to go through the court system now.”

“Why? I don’t understand. I want to come back. Why can’t I just come home?”

As much as he wanted to, Sloane would not bad-mouth the Larsens. They were and always would be the boy’s grandparents and Tina’s parents. “We both have to be patient, okay? Can you do that for me?”

Sloane heard the boy sniffle.

“Jake, you trust me, right? You trust that I’ll do everything I can to make sure you’re okay, right?”

“Someone’s coming. I have to go.”

“Jake?”

“I have to go.”

“Jake, I love—”

The call had disconnected.

Sloane stared at the phone, the word
disconnected
shouting at him. He tossed it onto the bed and threw back his head, the grief so overwhelming it physically pained him. Short of breath, he stood and tried to force air into his lungs as he paced and ran a hand through his hair.

The phone rang again.

“Jake?”

“David? Are you all right?”

Sloane closed his eyes.

“David?” Charles Jenkins sounded wide awake.

“Yeah. I’m here.”

“Bad dream?”

“I don’t think so. No.” Sloane checked the call log and confirmed the prior area code to be for San Francisco.

Mentally, he switched gears and realized it was late, after midnight. Sloane had told Charles Jenkins to call him the minute he found out anything about Tina’s killer, no matter the time. “Have you found him?”

Jenkins paused. “No. But I know who he is, and I have a way to get him to come to me.”

Sloane pondered the information. “Then I’m coming to you.”

APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS
VIRGINIA

STENOPOLIS HOOKED THE jumper cables to the car battery and flipped the switch. The metal chain pulled taut, and the cars on the rail spurs lurched and creaked, creating a cacophony of echoing noise inside the mine before inching forward with a grinding hum. The car in front, which contained the body of Curley Wade, would travel down the shaft a quarter of a mile and spill its load. Wade’s body would plummet farther, into a black hole, how deep Stenopolis did not know, but certainly deep enough never to be found.

Stenopolis pulled off his perspiration-soaked T-shirt and replaced it with a clean shirt. Wade had been more resilient than Stenopolis had expected; the man was clearly not working in Human Resources. He had displayed impressive stamina and resolve, more than most.

As the car disappeared into the darkness, Stenopolis retrieved his laptop computer and sat on a metal drum outside the mine, considering the evening sky while the machine powered up. A low blanket of millions of stars stretched to the trace glow of artificial light on the eastern horizon. He loved this time of day, often the only time he found peace.

He entered the site for a familiar search engine and typed the name Curley Wade had provided, confident that Wade had told him the truth. Once he broke a man, he did not worry about lies.

Wade had advised that Charles Jenkins had served in Vietnam and had been recruited by the Agency because he was fluent in Spanish. Jenkins had been sent to Mexico City to monitor the activities of Marxist guerrillas during a time when the United States thought it might need Mexico’s oil. However, Jenkins abruptly left the Agency, for reasons Wade clearly did not know, and disappeared before resurfacing thirty years later to ask Wade to help him identify Stenopolis from a photograph. Stenopolis was upset at being so sloppy. Ordinarily it was a mistake he would not make.

So who was this Charles Jenkins, and how did he get a photograph? Those were the ultimate questions, but others intrigued Stenopolis as well. Where had this Charles Jenkins been for the past thirty years, and what had he been doing? Could Stenopolis and Jenkins be in the same line of work? If so, Stenopolis could expect the man to be highly trained and skilled. He would have to be extremely cautious.

Over the next thirty-five minutes Stenopolis visited a number of trusted sites but found nothing on the man, and for the first time he began to wonder if he had underestimated Wade. Then he caught a break. The information was limited and did not explain where Jenkins had been for the past thirty years, but it did reveal what he was currently doing, and that was more than enough to put the rest of the pieces of the puzzle together. Two years earlier, a Charles Jenkins had applied for a license to work as a private investigator in the State of Washington.

“My my,” Stenopolis said, staring at a photograph of a light-skinned African American. “A private investigator. Mr. Sloane, you are proving to be quite resilient.”

CHAPTER
ELEVEN