Eric Lustbader - First Daughter

Searching through the shelves that housed his records and video-cassettes, he found the box containing the iPod dock he'd bought but never used. He took it out, plugged it into the aux receptacle in the back of the stereo receiver. Then he put the iPod into the dock.

He decided to listen to something of Emma's at random. This turned out to be an album for some reason called Boxer , by a band called The National. He thought of Emma, imagined her listening to these muscular songs-he particularly liked "Fake Empire"-wondered what would have been going through her mind.

As the music played, he fired up his computer, went online. According to Leelee's records, the address where Brady had his logwood delivered was on Shepherd Street, in Mount Rainier, Maryland. He pulled up Google Maps, punched in the address, and clicked the HYBRID Button, which gave him both the map and the satellite photo of the area. The address was only five or six miles southeast of where he was born. The thought gave him the shivers.

Forty minutes later, he got up, rummaged around the house for several items he thought he might need, stuffed them into a lightweight gym bag. He checked his Glock, shoved extra ammunition in his pocket, grabbed his coat. On the way out the door, he called Sharon. There was no answer. He disconnected before her voice mail picked up. With a sharp stab of jealousy, he wondered where she was. What if she was out with another man? That was her right, wasn't it? Yes, but he didn't want to think about it. He climbed into his car, his heart hammering in his chest. Driving to Shepherd Street, he thought, this could be it, the end of a road twenty-five years long.

WHAT WERE the odds that Ian Brady lived in a hotel just four miles from Jack's house? Yet this was what Jack saw as he cruised by the address Leelee had given him. RAINIER RESIDENCE HOTEL. SHORT-TERM AND LONG-TERM CORPORATE LEASES AVAILABLE the sign out front read. He didn't stop, didn't even slow down until he turned the corner onto Thirty-first Street, where he pulled into the curb and parked. The first thing he did was to check out the rear, which was flat, save for a zigzag of tiered black iron fire escapes. It gave out onto a concrete apron and, just beyond, a modestly sized blacktop parking lot, lit by sodium lights, from whose hard glare he kept his careful distance. But there was no rear entrance, most likely because of the same security concerns that had led to the installation of the parking lot lights.

Walking back to Shepherd Street, he found himself across the street from an ugly U-shaped structure hugging a courtyard with four withered trees, a Maginot Line of evergreen shrubs, fully a third of which were as brown and useless as sun-scorched newspapers. The hotel itself was three stories of pale yellow brick. Access to the apartments was via metal staircases at the center and either end of the U, along raw concrete catwalks that ran the length of the building. There was a coarseness about it, a glittery shabbiness, like a Christmas present wrapped in used paper. Had it been painted turquoise or flamingo, it could have passed as a down-at-the-heels Florida condo.

Jack kept away from the occasional dazzle as passing cars lit up sections of the sidewalk. He crossed the street, found his way to the manager's apartment. Even through the door he could hear the blare of the TV. Waiting for a seconds-long silence, he rapped hard on the door. The blare started up again, louder this time, which meant a commercial had come on. A moment later, the door was yanked open the length of a brass chain.

Dark eyes in a square, heavy-jawed face looked him up and down. "Not interested."

Jack put his foot across the doorjamb, flashed his ID even as the door began to swing shut. "I need some information," he said.

"What kind of information?" the manager said in a voice like a pit bull's growl.

"The kind you don't want to give me while I'm standing out here."

The dark eyes got small and piggy. "You're not from INS? All my workers are legit."

"Sure they are, but I don't care. I'm not from Immigration."

The manager nodded, Jack took his foot away, and the door closed enough for Pig-Eyes to unlatch the chain. Jack walked into a low-ceilinged apartment with small rooms made even smaller by enough sofas, chairs-upholstered and otherwise-and tables of all sizes and shapes to furnish the Carson's Chevy Chase mansion. The manager muted the TV. Images of Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble chased themselves across the screen.

"You have a tenant here by the name of Charles Whitman?"

"No."

"How about checking your records?"

"No need," Pig-Eyes said. "I know everyone who lives here."

"How about Ron Kray?"

"No Kray here."

"Ian Brady."

Pig-Eyes shook his head. "Uh-uh."

Jack considered Brady's propensity for misdirection. Alli had told him that the real Ian Brady had a female accomplice. "How about a Myra Hindley?"

"No," Pig-Eyes said, "but we got a Myron Hindley. You think he's the one you're looking for?"

"Do the apartment doors have peepholes?" Jack said.

Pig-Eyes seemed confused. "Yeah, why?"

"Are all the door locks the same as yours?"

"You bet. House rules. I gotta be able to have access to all the apartments."

"I need a broom, a wire hanger, and the key to Myron Hindley's apartment," Jack said. As the manager went to fetch the items, Jack added, "If you hear any loud noises, it's just a truck backfiring."

MYRON HINDLEY's apartment was on the third floor, at the far end of the building. Hardly a surprise, since that's precisely where Jack would have situated himself if he were in Brady's place. He had two choices: The first was to go in the front door. The second was to climb up the fire escape to the apartment's two rear windows. Since it would be far easier for Brady to flee out the front door than climb out the window, he decided to make a frontal assault. He wished Nina were here to take the back of the building, but she was with Alli. Besides, ever since the explicit warning he'd received from Secretary Paull, he'd decided to continue after Brady alone. This was his fight, not hers.

Every six feet, bare bulbs were screwed into porcelain fixtures in the ceiling of the catwalk. On the third floor, Jack took off his shoes, covered his right hand with both socks. Reaching up, he unscrewed each lightbulb as he progressed down the catwalk. The circles of illumination winked out one by one. After he'd disabled the last bulb, he put on his socks and shoes. His feet were freezing, and he had to wait several minutes for the warmth to come back so that he had full maneuverability.

With only the ambient wash from streetlights and the odd passing vehicle to illuminate the catwalk, Jack set the gym bag down on the concrete, opened the zip, took out a small can of WD-40 and a pair of bolt cutters. Then he took off his coat, hung it on the wire hanger, buttoned it, put the collar up. Then he twisted the top of the hanger so it wound around the butt of the broom handle. He stood this makeshift scarecrow against the railing of the catwalk directly opposite the door to Myron Hindley's apartment.

Standing to one side of the door, he sprayed the key Pig-Eyes had given him with WD-40. It slid right in as he inserted it into the lock. But he didn't turn it over. Instead, he picked up the bolt cutter. He rapped on the door, very loudly. Just as he pulled his fist away, three bullets exploded through the door, ripping holes in Jack's overcoat. The broom crashed over onto the catwalk.

Jack turned the key, opened the door. As at the manager's apartment, the door opened only to the length of the chain, which Jack promptly snipped in two with the bolt cutter. Drawing his Glock, he kicked open the door. Expecting another salvo of shots, he held his ground. When none came, he pitched himself across the threshold curled in a ball, came out of it with his Glock aimed into the room.