The Blonde (24 page)

“You’re more than ten feet away.”

And Kowalski was glad he was the only one looking out the window. Because nobody else needed to see what happened next.

The burst.

The bright red quadruple burst out of his mouth, nose, and eyes, splattering the side of the building like a blast from a hose.

His fingers, slipping away from the air conditioner.

His body dropping straight down into the historic graveyard below.

Down where they used to bury the ones they couldn’t save in the hospital, back in the early days, the Colonial times, when people died of natural afflictions, not microscopic machines that traveled to your brain and exploded.

Kowalski looked until he’d had enough. No twitching. No surprise resurrections. He’d seen it happen before.

But no.

Nothing.

He turned around and slid down the wall. Used his good hand to reach into his pocket, looking for his Homeland Security badge. Hopefully, those holographic eagles would work their magic one last time. Christ in heaven, was there some explaining to do.

W
ithin minutes, Kowalski had it squared away best he could. The tricky part had been apologizing to the guards he’d assaulted and
then
getting them to agree to guard the doors to room 803 until reinforcements arrived. But they did, God love ‘em. Their agreement was encouraged, no doubt, by the fact that Kowalski told them the dead man in the graveyard was an international terrorist. And that they’d probably receive medals and shit.

The guards kept the staff away, and the four of them had the room to themselves.

Kowalski, standing against the wall.

Kelly, in her bed.

Jack, slumped back in a leather and wood visitor’s chair.

Ed’s head, in its Adidas bag, placed in the corner, near the door. He was really starting to ripen.

“You okay, Jackie boy?” Kowalski asked.

“Never better,” Jack said, then looked over at Kelly, who was tucked under covers, eyes closed. “Though I wish I’d known I hadn’t actually been poisoned, oh, about eleven hours ago.”

Kowalski smirked. “Luminous toxin, Jack? It’s from
D.O.A
. The original. Not that shitty Meg Ryan remake.”

“I saw it, but I’ve never heard of luminous fucking toxin.”

“She pulled a
mind op
on you, bro. I checked her bag back at the hotel. She slipped you disulfiram. One pill, five hundred milligrams. Odorless, colorless, dissolves fast. Right in your beer. Made you dizzy, made you puke, but it was nothing lethal.”

“Disulwhat?”

“Disulfiram, aka Antabuse. The stuff they give alcoholics. She probably boosted it from some guy’s luggage. Am I right?”

Kelly smiled faintly. Her eyes were still closed.

“What about the other thing?” Jack asked. “The Mary Kates. They made up, too?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Wonderful.”

“Look. Hang with me, we’ll get this sorted out. I really do work for the government. A department you’re not supposed to know about, but still. I’m going to order you and Kelly some blood transfusions. That doesn’t work, we’ll get you more. This is Pennsylvania Hospital. Oldest hospital in the country. We’ll find a way to get you back to normal, even if they have to break out the leeches.”

Not likely, in all honesty.

But you had to give people something to hang on to.

Eventually, he had to get Kelly White—or Vanessa, if that was her true name—out of here. Worst case, he’d fill a syringe full of the old blood from Ed Hunter’s head. The stuff full of the Mary Kates. Loaded with his DNA. Long as Kelly kept that near her, she’d be fine. Could be worse. Some people had to cart around colostomy bags.

Next, he’d have to arrange some transport to move from here. Sort out CI-6’s stake in all of this.

Which, speaking of …

Kowalski picked up the room line, used the prepaid calling card, dialed the last number he had for Nancy.

She answered.

“I’ve got what you want.”

“What do you mean?”

“I told you I’d come through.”

“Michael… oh no. Michael.”

She was using his first name. She never did that.

“Something wrong?”

“What are you doing? This mission was over for you.”

“I never fail. You know that.”

“You did this time. Where are you? And is anyone else with you?”

“Like who?”

Kowalski heard a grunt behind him, but he ignored it. He needed to hear it from her. How far into this she was. If she was eating from both sides of the trough.

“Did you encounter any opposition?” his handler asked.

“And I said, Like
who?
Perhaps a certain thin-haired individual, Nancypants?”

Something pelted Kowalski’s shoulder. A dark pink cup made of hard plastic, hospital-issue.

What the
…

When he turned around, he saw it right away.

Jack and the gym bag were gone.

Four people, down to two now.

He looked at Kelly: her eyes open, her mouth agape, her finger pointing to the door, her face with that expression that said, I tried to tell you.

“Let me call you back,” Kowalski said.

THE
APPOINTMENT

Hotel Sofitel, Seventeenth and Sansom

I
t was a short cab ride across town to the hotel. Donovan Piatt had selected a swank place, probably because of the intimidation factor. Doormen with neatly pressed uniforms. A front entrance tucked away from the main bustle of downtown Philadelphia. And know what? It worked. Jack felt cheap walking through the front doors. He’d done some reading about this hotel back at home. A favorite of visiting athletes and musicians. Billy Joel had spent some time here recently, according to one gossip column. Imagine that.
Billy Joel
. The guy who wrote the song Jack and Theresa danced to at their wedding: “To Make You Feel My Love.” And now he was here to see her divorce lawyer. By God, they’d come full circle.

By the time Jack entered the restaurant in the back of the lobby, he even had two minutes to spare.

Piatt was sitting at a table covered with ivory linen.

Along with Jack’s wife, Theresa.

They were holding hands.

Jack felt a cold weight in the middle of his chest, one that slid down his lungs and into his stomach.

His worst fears confirmed.

He’d been faithful after the separation.

She hadn’t.

Jack sat down. Put the Adidas bag next to him so that it touched the side of his foot at all times. Someone tried to move it, he’d feel it.

“Who’s watching Callie?”

“My sister,” Theresa said. She wasn’t looking at him.

“For how long?”

“A few days.”

“We should get down to it,” Piatt said.

“Down to what, Donovan?”

“This is not going to be easy for you to hear, Jack. But I want you to think for a moment about what’s best for your daughter.”

“Fuck you,
Donovan.”
He turned to his wife. “Therese, what’s going on?”

Theresa still wouldn’t look at him.

“Jack, just hear us out.”

Us
.

In that moment—and in the glance they exchanged—it clicked into place. Jack had been too buried in his work, indeed. Too buried to see that Theresa’s weekend trips to her mother in Toledo were actually trips to Philadelphia. Sure, she’d taken Callie along. And left her at her mother’s place. And his mother-in-law had known, condoned it, probably encouraged it.

“How long have you been fucking my wife, Donovan?”

“Jack,” Theresa said.

“You have a choice to make, Jack. You can listen to us and still retain some visiting rights with your daughter, or you can choose
not
to listen to us. There’s no court in this land that wouldn’t award full custody to Theresa. Especially not here in Philadelphia. Not with the judges / know.”

The chill had reached Jack’s stomach and it exploded. This was the moment he’d dreaded, hadn’t dared think about: losing Callie.

He didn’t think he needed to worry, tried to tell himself that Theresa wasn’t that kind of woman, no matter how rotten their relationship had become—she wouldn’t deny her daughter the right to see her father. Theresa’s own parents were divorced. Swore her daughter wouldn’t have to go through the same thing.

“My advice to you,” Donovan was saying, “is that you listen to my proposal. Otherwise, you’re going to find it awfully tough to see your daughter, once she’s out here with us.”

“In Philadelphia,” Jack said.

“That’s right. Bryn Mawr, to be specific. The schools are phenomenal.”

Jack looked at his wife. “Philadelphia.”

She finally locked eyes with him. “Even when you were home, Jack, you were never home. Don’t pretend now.”

“It’s the best thing for Callie,” Donovan said. “Get past your pride, your anger, and you’ll see that. You’ll know it. And I know you’re too good a father to let your own feelings stand in the way of your daughter’s future.”

Philadelphia.

A waiter approached, but Piatt shooed him away with an upraised palm. He reached down and to his left, removed a navy blue folder that was embossed with the name of his firm in gold leaf:
PLATT GLACKIN
&
CLARK.
He handed it to Jack, who took it, then placed it on top of his napkin. He opened it. Saw various forms and agreements, with his name and Callie’s name. There were dollar figures, too, and he saw the words
travel allowance
, but Jack’s eyes couldn’t focus on any of it. Clipped to the pocket of the folder was a blue pen with gold trim, and gold letters that read
PLATT GLACKIN & CLARK
.

You were never home
.

Don’t pretend now
.

Jack realized that Donovan was right. There was only one thing standing in the way of his daughter’s future.

“It’s a generous deal, Jack. If you look at the first page on the left—”

“First,” Jack said, “I have a request.”

“Shoot, Jack.”

“I want to kiss my wife good-bye.”

“I hardly think that’s—”

“Shut up,
Donovan.
” Jack stood up, moved around the table to Theresa.

“Don’t do this,” she said, staring forward.

Jack leaned down and pressed her lips against his anyway. She put her cold hands up to Jack’s face to push him away, but he held on, probed his tongue into her mouth. She tasted like bitter coffee. He pushed her back into her chair and held her head in his hands and kissed her more.

“For Christ’s sake …”

Jack broke their embrace.

“Good-bye, Theresa.”

And then he picked up the Adidas bag and started to walk away.

“Son of a bitch, Eisley, you get back here. Don’t do this to your daughter.”

Jack turned around.

“You hold on to her now, Donovan,” he said. “She’s the kind of woman you don’t want to leave alone.”

ONE DAY
LATER

Fernwood Court, Gurnee, Illinois

T
heresa’s sister was surprised to see Jack. She thought Theresa would be coming back, not him. “It’s not your weekend,” she stammered. Looked like she knew, too.

“Call her and check,” Jack suggested.

He was tired from the ride. No easy trick, getting back to Illinois. Airport screeners would have had an unpleasant surprise waiting for them when they checked the Adidas bag. Not that his discovery had been any less shocking. Thankfully, he’d been in a fast-food restroom when he looked. He was able to more or less stifle the scream.

So a plane was out.

A car rental, too—not with his wallet gone, including driver’s license and credit cards.

So it was either a bus or a train. Train was faster. A little over a day. Jack called his editor at the paper, convinced him to wire the money for the ticket to Philadelphia. He’d explain later, he said but he had a hell of a story.

Not for the paper. He wouldn’t dare put this in the paper.

But he was going to put it
on
paper. And in a safety-deposit
box, duplicated ten times over, with copies to be sent to various daily newspapers, both here and in the U.K., in the event of his death. Along with physical evidence, of course: vials of blood from the head.

Jack didn’t know if he’d ever see Michael Kowalski again. But he wanted to be prepared if he did.

Somehow, he thought Kowalski would appreciate that.

From upstairs, Jack heard the stamping of feet, then saw his girl come bounding down the stairs. “
Daddy!
”

She gave the best hugs: full-on anaconda squeezes that threatened to burst his heart. There was nothing else like them in the world.

“
I missed you.
”

He wished he could hug her forever. Have her with him forever.

And wouldn’t that solve everything.

Of course, that wasn’t possible. So after kissing her head and putting her back down for her nap, and telling Theresa’s sister that, yes, he was fine, and, no, he had no idea when Theresa was due home, but he could take it from here, thank you very much (thinking, you know exactly where your sister is—Donovan Piatt’s an old family friend, after all), Jack took the Adidas bag—and a plastic bag of stuff he’d picked up at a Home Depot—down into the basement to work on the head. Filled as many vials as he could stand. Tried not to look at the face.

When he was finished, he took the bag into the backyard and dug a shallow hole. Nudged the bag with his foot and started covering it with the loose, pungent soil.

Jack thought about the locket he was going to buy for Callie. A heart made sense. Something with a hollow glass insert.

Something he was going to have to make her promise to wear forever, no matter what.

Just like the vial he had strapped around his neck.