John Saul - Black Lightning

Anne gazed mutely at the envelope. “No,” she breathed. “I — We’ll be all right.” She laid the phone back on the hook, realizing only then that Kevin was standing in the doorway, his brow creased with worry as he watched her.

“Is something wrong, Mom?” the boy asked, sounding far younger than his ten years. Moving closer to his mother, he put his arms around her, and she, still staring at the envelope on her desk, held him close.

When the doorbell rang five minutes later, Anne had moved to the sofa in the living room, but her arms were still around her son. As the chimes sounded a second time, Anne gently disengaged herself from Kevin and approached the front door. Before she was halfway there, Kevin had scooted around her and pulled the door wide. Looking up, he gazed quizzically into Mark Blakemoor’s face. “I know you,” he said. “You came over when I found Kumquat in the alley.”

“Pretty good memory,” Mark Blakemoor said. He squatted down so his eyes were level with Kevin’s. “And now, since I’m a cop, I’m going to ask you a question. How did you know it was me before you opened the door?”

Kevin looked puzzled. “Wh-what do you mean?” he stammered.

“Well, you must have known who it was, or you wouldn’t have just opened the door like that, would you? So what was it? Did your mom tell you?” As Kevin glanced nervously at his mother, Blakemoor jerked his head toward one of the curtained windows that flanked the door. “Or did you peek, like I would have done?”

“I peeked,” Kevin cried, seizing the opportunity Blakemoor had offered him.

“Good for you,” Mark said, tousling Kevin’s hair as he rose to his feet. “Always best to know who’s outside before you open the door, right?” Finally he turned his attention to Anne. “What happened?” he asked. “On the phone you sounded—” Then, realizing that Kevin was listening to every word he uttered, he made a quick adjustment. “—worried,” he finished, feeling inordinately pleased at the glint of appreciation that came into Anne’s eyes as she realized that he’d avoided referring to her obvious terror in front of her son. Also, she’d obviously decided to forgive him for the theory he’d expounded at lunch, and the realization had the effect of lifting the depression that had fallen over him as he’d watched her speed out of the parking lot of the Salish Lodge.

“A lot has happened,” Anne said. As she led the detective through the living room to the den, she quickly told him about the knife Glen had found, and Sheila Harrar’s identification of it as having belonged to her son. “When Kevin and I got home, the motor home was gone, but that was on my desk.” She nodded toward the envelope, which Mark Blakemoor gingerly picked up, carefully holding it by its edges.

“You haven’t read it?” he asked, his voice betraying nothing of what he might be thinking. When Anne shook her head, he opened the unsealed flap of the envelope and carefully slid the single sheet of paper onto the desk’s surface. It was the same kind of paper, he noted, that had been used for the message that had been mailed to Anne. “Got a Baggie?” he asked. “Anything like that?”

“I’ll get one,” Kevin instantly volunteered. As he darted out of the room, Anne took the opportunity to speak quickly to Blakemoor.

“Everything’s crazy,” she told him, her voice shaking now. “The basement’s cleaned up to the point that it looks like some kind of laboratory, and Kevin said Glen was acting funny up in the mountains today.”

“Funny, how?” Mark asked.

Anne shrugged. “All he would say was that Glen kept looking at him in a way that made him nervous, then sent him off to fish all by himself. But he says he can tell us where they were, and he thinks he knows where Glen found the knife. And when I got home from lunch—” She fell silent as Kevin reappeared clutching a box of Baggies in his hand.

The boy watched in fascination as Mark Blakemoor carefully opened the folded note and sealed it inside one of the plastic bags even before reading it. Then, after scanning it himself, he handed it to Anne. Her hand trembling, she focused on the words:

Dearest Anne,

Are you ready to face the truth yet? (Only part of it is in the computer, Anne. The rest is in your mind.) You’ve known it since my release from the hospital. Remember that afternoon, Anne? There was an excitement you’d never felt before, wasn’t there? It was electricity, Anne, the kind that filled the theater when Nijinsky leaped. That’s the single great sorrow of my life, you know. I never sat in an audience when Nijinsky danced. But at least I know he wasn’t mad.

Anyway, it’s been fun, but now it’s time for the final dance. And I’ve already chosen my partner.

She read the note and reread it, her mind struggling to comprehend the words her eyes were seeing.

What did it mean?

Nijinsky? What did a dancer who’d been dead for nearly fifty years have to do with anything?

“Do you have any idea where Glen might have gone?” she heard Mark Blakemoor saying. His voice was gentle, and when she managed to tear her eyes away from the note to look up at him, she saw no trace of the satisfaction of vindication in his expression.

All she saw was sympathy.

“No,” she breathed. “His car’s out in front, so …” Her words died on her lips. She’d been about to say he must have gone for a walk, but it was pouring outside. Even if he’d gone out before the rain started, wouldn’t he be back by now?

Suddenly a line from the note popped up in her mind:

It’s time for the final dance. And I’ve already chosen my partner.

Then she remembered a line from the previous note:

I can come into your house any time, you know. Any time at all.

Images tumbled through her mind: the basement, cleaned up for the first time in years.

The motor home that had mysteriously appeared on the street, and remained there, just a couple of houses away.

The motor home that was now gone!

Now the pieces started falling together. Whoever had written the notes had been out there for days, watching them, watching her! “I know where he’s been,” she whispered, turning away from the window, her face drained of color. “Oh, God, Mark, he’s been right outside for days. There was a motor home—” Still talking, telling Blakemoor how annoyed she’d been when the big van had appeared down the block, she found her leather carryall and began rummaging through it, searching for her notebook.

Her fingers finally closing on it, she pulled it out, ripped out the page on which she’d scrawled the R.V.’s license number, and handed it to Mark. “He was here, Mark!” she said. “My God, he’s taken Glen!” She picked up the note again. “This is wrong. Mark, I know how it looks, and I know what you think, but it’s wrong. Glen didn’t write this note! Someone else did, and now he’s got Glen!” But Mark Blakemoor wasn’t listening; he was already on his cellular phone, putting a trace on the motor home’s license plate. While he talked, Anne read the note one more time, and slowly her numbed mind began to work again.

The more she studied the note, the more her certainty grew that Glen hadn’t written it. One word kept leaping out at her, taunting her. Finally she went to her computer, called up her file manager, and typed the single word into the search utility.

NUJINSKY.

She pressed the return button and waited. A few seconds later a short list of files appeared, all of them transcriptions of interviews she’d had over the years with one man.

Richard Kraven.

She double-clicked on the first file on the list and a second later the transcript appeared on the monitor, the word “Nijinsky” brightly highlighted.