Russell Andrews - Midas

“Yeah, I know. Whatever he wants is fine.”

“TiVo. The one that tapes eighty hours.”

“Okay. As soon as I get back.”

“He wants the lifetime guarantee, too.”

“Just give me the information, Gary.”

“Okay, okay. There are two calls to D.C.” He read off the first number. “That one was called in the afternoon of the seventh.”

“What’s your phone number?” Justin said to Colonel Zanesworth. “Your office number.”

Zanesworth told him and Justin impatiently said into the phone, “Okay, that one’s confirmed. What’s the next one?” He listened as Gary rattled off the next number. Justin asked him to repeat it one more time. As soon as he heard it again, he hung up without even saying thank you, and immediately dialed.

He heard the voice answer on the other end of the phone, just one word, uttered in that bureaucratic monotone, then three more words, a little bit of life put into those, and Justin didn’t answer. The voice on the other end of the line waited a moment, when there was no response said, “Hello?” and Justin flicked his cell phone shut.

“You better get a story ready for where you’ve been this morning, Colonel.”

“Who answered the phone?”

“Things have just gotten even more complicated. So here’s my suggestion. The lieutenant had some kind of breakdown. You’ll have plenty of witnesses for that. Just say he got out of the car and ran, maybe he threw the keys away and it took you twenty minutes to find them before you could go looking for him.”

“Who answered the phone, son?”

“The Justice Department,” Justin said quietly. “The attorney general’s office.”

“Son of a bitch,” the colonel whispered.

And Justin, in much the same whisper, said, “Yeah. I think that pretty much sums things up nicely.”

He didn’t like being back at the house. For one thing, he wanted to get the hell out of Washington and back to East End Harbor. Not that East End would be any safer. But at least it was smaller. Here he felt like he was swimming around in a large fish tank, the only non-shark in the water. And all around him were people watching, just waiting for him to be eaten.

For another thing, being here felt too much like violating the dead.

Justin didn’t believe in ghosts, but sitting in his rental car, staring out at the slightly overgrown lawn with its wintery patches of brown, looking at the silent white two-story house, the suburban lot felt haunted. Justin felt haunted. Right now the whole world felt haunted.

But he knew he didn’t have much time. The place would be cleaned out soon, and Theresa Cooke was beyond caring about anything as trivial as breaking and entering, so Justin forced himself to open the car door and step out into the quiet street. Not breaking stride, determined to look as if he belonged there-as if he weren’t an intruder; as if he weren’t the reason the house was empty and silent and dead-he went up the walk to the front door. It didn’t take him long to break in. Then, inside the foyer, he closed the door behind him and stood still, just listening. All he heard was the silence.

He went upstairs. There were three bedrooms, one master and two for the girls. He was momentarily stymied; he’d only been expecting one extra room, but he figured out which one was Hannah’s-he checked the bookshelves; Reysa, the twelve-year-old, had a higher reading level-and he began his search. It didn’t take long. He tried not to disturb her things. It didn’t make sense, someone would be disturbing them soon enough, packing them up, giving them away, saving them, tossing them into the garbage, whatever, but Justin wanted no part of it. After a few minutes of combing through the dolls and toys, he shifted a large pink stuffed dog off to the side, away from the drawer it was blocking, and inside the drawer he saw what he was looking for.

He’d brought a manila envelope in his gym bag, along with a small piece of bubble wrap, and soon the envelope had a bulge in it. He’d put several dollars’ worth of stamps on it before he left home, figuring that would be plenty. Justin sealed the envelope, and left the little girl’s room, closing the door behind him. Then he was downstairs and out the front door, not bothering to lock it behind him-it made no difference now whether it was open or shut-and he walked back to the car.

Twenty minutes later, he noticed a mailbox on the street, in front of the entrance to a minimall. He pulled the car over, hopped out, and shoved the envelope into the box. He pulled into the mall when he saw a cell phone store. It took him less than fifteen minutes to buy and pay for a new phone with prepaid minutes. He didn’t want to be traced, not for this call, anyway. Using the new phone, he got the number for Bruce’s Gym in Boston. When a woman answered at the other end, Justin said, “Leyla?”

“Hold on, I’ll get her,” the voice said. And momentarily, another female voice was on, saying, “Yup?”

“I need to speak to Wanda Chinkle,” he said. “This is-”

“Bup-bup-bup-bup-bup. . no need to gimme your name,” Leyla told him. “You the troublemaker?”

“Yeah,” Justin said. “That’s me.”

“I ain’t seen Wanda lately.”

“But you know how to get in touch with her.”

“Not so much. Not for the last forty-eight hours or so.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause she ain’t where she said she’d be. And I don’t know where else she’d be goin’.”

Justin didn’t say anything for quite a while, started to hang up, remembered that this woman Leyla was still holding on at the other end, so he just said, “Thanks,” very softly and clicked the red off button on the phone.

She ain’t where she said she’d be.

Wanda was missing.

He took a deep breath, felt a sharp pain rattle his chest-realized it was pain that stemmed from fear-and exhaled, hoping the pain would go away. It didn’t. But he decided to ignore it. Decided to ignore the news about Wanda, too, because it was the only thing he could do right now. And thirty minutes after that he was at St. Joseph’s Hospital, which is where he knew he had to be, Wanda or no Wanda, because the news had reported that this was where the girl was being cared for.

At the front desk, Justin asked for the doctor who was in charge of Hannah Cooke. The nurse at the reception desk looked him over carefully, then lifted a phone and spoke into the receiver. It only took a few minutes after that for a youngish doctor to approach him, introduce himself as Dr. Graham, and say that he was looking after Hannah. Justin asked if there was a place where they might have a couple of minutes of privacy, and Dr. Graham took him into a nearby office.

Justin didn’t bother to sit down, he just said, “I want to make sure the girl gets the best care possible, and I’ll pay for it.”

“Are you a relative?” Dr. Graham asked.

“No.”

“A family friend?”

“I’ve met her,” Justin told him. “It doesn’t matter what my relationship is, does it, as long as I’m willing to pay?”

“I suppose not. But Hannah was badly injured. Parts of her body were badly burned and there’s some disfigurement-”

“Is she going to survive?”

“I don’t know yet. Not for certain. But I believe so.”

“I want her to have whatever reconstructive surgery is necessary. When this is over, if she lives, I’d like her to be as close to normal as possible.”

“The bills are going to be-”

“I don’t care what they’re going to be.” Justin handed over a credit card. “Run this through. If you reach any kind of a limit, which I don’t think you will, just let me know and I’ll provide more.”