Robert Crais - The Watchman

She said, “I don’t want to find out. Please don’t find out. Please do not tell me.”

Then Cole realized what she had asked of Pike-was her father the person telling Vahnich where to find her?

Cole said, “We’re guessing too much. Let’s go be detectives.”

Cole got up and went to the door. Pike lingered behind for a moment, then followed him out.

Larkin Conner Barkley

Larkin watched Pike leaving, and in the moment he stepped outside, he was framed in the open door of their Echo Park house like a picture in a magazine, frozen in time and space. A big man, but not a giant. More average in size than not. With the sleeves covering his arms, and his face turned away, he seemed heartbreakingly normal, which made her love him even more. A superman risked nothing, but an average man risked everything.

When he glanced back before he pulled the door, she saw the emptiness in his face, the gleaming dark glasses; then the door closed and she was alone.

“Make it right. Please make it right.”

Said it to the empty house, then felt stupid and ashamed of herself for saying it.

She was more frightened now than even those times when the men from Ecuador were shooting. If her father had abandoned her, then she was truly alone, more alone than she had ever felt or known or believed could be possible. Larkin felt as if she were having an out-of-body experience. She felt outside her own body, yet the air seemed alive on her skin, and the house was so quiet the silence was noise. Like being in the same place twice at the same time, each overlaid on the other and not quite connected. Except for the fear, she felt nothing. She tried to make herself feel something else. She thought she should be angry or resentful, but a switch had been thrown and now she was empty.

Larkin went into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. She wanted to see if the emptiness showed on her face the way she saw it on Pike’s. She couldn’t tell. Looking at herself, she saw her father. She had his eyes and ears and the line of his jaw. She had her mother’s nose and mouth.

She said, “I don’t care.”

She didn’t care what he had done. He was her father. If Pike could carry his father, she could carry hers.

Larkin went back to the table and studied the lists of phone numbers and the phone trees she had been tracing. She found Khali Vahnich’s number, then searched for it through each of the twenty-six single-spaced pages. Each time she found it, she marked it. When she finished with the twenty-six pages, she went back to the beginning and picked out the numbers Vahnich had called.

She found it near the bottom of the second page. She saw the number and recognized it because it was so familiar.

Vahnich had called her company’s corporate headquarters. The Barkley Company.

Larkin saw the number and thought, Wow, this is bizarre, because all she felt was the strange out-of-body sensation with the air humming on her skin. Her vision blurred, so she knew she was crying, but she didn’t gasp or sob and her nose didn’t clog; it was as if someone else was crying, and she was watching it from the inside.

She wiped her eyes so she could see better, and kept searching through the list. She found the number twice more, then stopped because, really, what was the point?

Joe and Elvis were right. Her father was connected with these people, and now they were both in trouble. Vahnich was trying to use her to get something from her father or punish him, and either way, he was fucking it up.

Pike’s father had been a monster. Her father was a fuckup. Didn’t matter. She loved him.

“Make it right.”

She was speaking to herself.

The Barkley Company occupied the top three floors of a black glass fortress in Century City with enough armed guards, security stations, and metal detectors to secure an international airport. Pike called Bud to arrange the meet, expecting to see Barkley at home, but Bud told him Barkley had been called to his office. Pike did not explain why they wanted to see him, except that it was about Larkin. Bud agreed to meet them-they would need Bud to get through security.

Bud said, “No guns, Joe. I can’t let you be armed.”

Pike said, “Sure.”

“You bringing Larkin?”

“You bringing Pitman?”

“I’m not going to tell Pitman a goddamned thing. I won’t even tell Barkley. Just meet me in the lobby and I’ll take you up.”

Bud hung up.

Parking at Barkley’s office was an adventure. When Pike and Cole arrived, attendants took their names and asked for identification, and guards with mirrors examined the bottom of Cole’s car.

Cole said, “If we have to get out of this place fast, we’re screwed.”

Pike didn’t play off Cole’s bait for a joke. He was thinking about the girl. He wanted to hurt the people who were hurting her. He kept reading the pain in her eyes, that she was trapped by herself in a tortured world, alone with a pain no one could share and from which she would never escape. And each time he saw it in her he saw it in himself, and wanted to punish them. He wanted to punish them badly enough that he would become his father to do it, and they would be him. He wanted them to know it like that-for hurting this girl. For abusing their power. For their arrogance.

Cole said, “You’re awfully quiet. Even for you.”

“I’m good.”

Bud was waiting in the lobby with two visitor passes they had to wear around their necks. Bud had already signed them in.

Bud said, “You want to tell me what this is about before we go up?”

“No.”

Pike knew from Bud’s manner that Pitman hadn’t called. They passed through a metal detector, then boarded a special elevator that went directly to the top floor.

As they rode up, Bud said, “How’s she doing?”

“Not so good.”

“You just keep her safe. That’s why you’re here. I think there’s a lot these bastards aren’t telling us.”

When the doors opened, Bud led them into a reception area where an older woman with curly blond hair sat at a desk. She recognized Bud and waved them past.

“He’s back there somewhere. If he’s not in his office, just ask. They’re having some kind of problem.”

Cole nudged Pike and whispered, “Already? We just arrived.”

They followed Bud down a long hall that looked like an art gallery, then past empty cubicles that should have been occupied by people Bud described as assistants. They found Conner Barkley outside his office with a small group of well-dressed men and women. They were immaculately groomed in Brioni and Donna Karan, but Barkley looked as if he had just rolled out of bed. His hair was sticking out at odd angles and his eyes were nervous and red. He blinked when he saw them approaching, then ran a hand over his head as he frowned at Bud.

“I didn’t know you were bringing these people.”

Pike grabbed Barkley by the throat and pushed him backwards into his office.

Bud was caught off guard.

“Joe!”

Chaos exploded like incoming mortars, but Pike ignored it. The well-dressed people were shocked and shouting, and Cole told someone to back the fuck up. Pike pushed Barkley into the wall as Cole and Bud surged into the office behind him and slammed the door, Bud trying to pull him off Barkley.

“Are you crazy? Did you lose your mind?”

Pike squeezed Barkley’s throat. Not so hard. A little.

Pike said, “Stentorum Real Holdings.”

Barkley’s eyes floated in pink pools. He wheezed, and his words were gurgles.

“I don’t know what you want.”

Bud had Pike by the arm. Cole stepped up beside him.

Bud saying, “Let go. Jesus, they’re calling the police! You want the police?”