Greg Iles - Dead Sleep

I squeeze the wheel, trying to control my temper. “I don’t want that guilt.”

“I’m glad. Because that would be really fucked up.”

I grip the wheel still harder to bleed off my exasperation, but it does no good. “Will you call and see if they’ve compared the handwriting? If it’s not Wingate’s, I’ll admit I’m being paranoid. But if it is, we’ll know Wingate mailed or gave the UNSUB my picture.”

John takes out his cell phone, calls the field office, and asks for the forensic unit. “Jenny, John Kaiser. Have you guys heard from New York on that handwriting yet?… What did they say?… I see. One hundred percent sure?… Right. Thanks.” He presses End, then lets his head fall forward and sighs.

“What is it?”

“The phone number on your photo was in Wingate’s handwriting.”

My stomach goes hollow, and I slam the wheel with my open hand. “There it is. Somebody outside New Orleans chose me as victim number five, and it got Jane killed.”

He bites his lower lip and shakes his head. “If I had to pick someone, I’d pick Marcel de Becque.”

“What if he ordered me, John? The way you’d commission any painting? He’s known who I am for years. He tells Wingate he wants me in the next painting, but since I’m traveling all the time, Wingate finds an easy way to supply what de Becque wants. He takes Jane instead.”

“There’s one big hole in that theory.”

“That de Becque didn’t have Jane’s painting? That’s easy. Wingate sold it out from under him. That’s the source of their bad blood.”

“I was talking about coincidence. Every other victim lives in New Orleans. But for some unknown reason, de Becque chooses you – a world traveler based in San Francisco – as victim number five. To fill de Becque’s order, Wingate decides to use your twin sister as a substitute. And that substitute just happens to live in the same city as all the other victims? That’s a statistical impossibility.”

A low pounding has started at the base of my skull. I reach down to the floor and unzip my fanny pack, looking for my pill bottle.

“What’s that?” John asks as I bring it up.

“Xanax.”

“ Tranquilizers?”

“It’s no big deal.”

“Xanax is a chemical cousin of Valium.”

“I know that. Look, I need to calm down.”

He looks out his window at the lake, but I know he’s not going to let it drop. “Do you take them regularly?”

I pop off the lid, shake two pills into my hand, and swallow them dry. “This has been a bad day, okay? I watched Wendy die. I watched you get shot. A guy tried to kidnap me, and I just found out I’m responsible for my sister’s death. You can put me in rehab tomorrow.”

He looks back at me, his hazel eyes filled with concern. “You do what you have to do to get through this. I’m just worried about you. And me. We’ve got another fifteen minutes in the car. You’re not going to fall asleep at the wheel, are you?”

I laugh. “Don’t worry about that. Two of these would put you out, but they’ll barely dent me.”

He studies me for a long moment, then faces the causeway again. “Sooner or later, we’re going to break through the wall, Jordan. We’re going to find those women. All of them.”

Sooner or later. It had better be sooner. Later is like the horizon; it recedes as you approach.

John lives in a suburban ranch house on a street with twenty others exactly like it. Homogenous Americana, enforced by neighborhood covenant. The lawns are well-tended, the houses freshly painted, the vehicles in the driveways clean and new. I park in the driveway, then help him out of the passenger side. With only me present, he uses the cane. It’s slow going, but he grits his teeth and keeps walking.

Under the carport, he punches a security code into a wall box and opens the back door, which leads into a laundry room, then a spotless white kitchen.

“You obviously never cook,” I remark.

“I cook sometimes.”

“You have a maid, then.”

“A woman comes in once a week. But I’m basically a neat guy.”

“I’ve never met a neat guy I’d want to spend the night with.”

He laughs, then winces. “The truth is, I’ve been sleeping on a cot at the office since Baxter called about your discovery in Hong Kong.”

“Ah.”

Beyond the kitchen counter is a dining area with a glass table, and a large arch leads on to a decently furnished den. Everything appears to be in its appointed place, with only a couple of magazines on a coffee table suggesting the presence of an occupant. The house feels like it’s been cleaned up for sale, or is even a demo unit used to sell young marrieds on the neighborhood.

“Where’s all your junk?” I ask, feeling a warm wave of Xanax wash against my headache.

“My junk?”

“You know. Books, videotapes? Old mail? The things you buy on impulse at Wal-Mart?”

He shrugs, then looks oddly wistful. “No wife, no kids, no junk.”

“That rule doesn’t apply to other bachelors I’ve known.”

He starts to reply, but winces again instead.

“Your leg?”

“It’s stiffening up fast. Let me just get on the couch there. I can go through the Argus photos there.”

“I think you’d better rest before you start on those.”

He limps to the sofa with his weight on the cane, but instead of helping him sit, I take his hand and pull him past the sofa toward the hall. “I don’t want to sleep,” he complains, pulling back against my hand.

“We’re not going to sleep.”

“Oh.”

His resistance stops, and I lead him toward a half-open door at the end of the hall, where a cherry footboard shows through. Like the rest of the house, the bedroom is clean; the bed is neatly made. With John’s casual dress habits, I thought this inner sanctum might be the secret wreck of the house. Maybe that’s just projection.

He starts to sit on the bed, but I stop him and pull back the covers first. Once he gets horizontal, the painkillers will kick in, and it will be a while before he feels like getting up again.

“I need to sit down,” he says in a tight voice.

With me holding his upper arms, he eases back and sits on the edge of the bed, then lies back on the pillow with a groan.

“Bad?”

“Not good. I’m okay, though.”

“Let’s see if I can make it better.”

I slip off my shoes, then climb onto the bed and carefully sit astride him. “Does that hurt?”

“No.”

“Liar.” Leaning forward, I brush his lips with mine and pull back, waiting for him to respond. His hands slide up my hips to my waist; then he kisses me back, gently, yet insistently enough to remind me of the passion I felt in the shower last night. A warm wave of desire rolls through me, which combined with the Xanax suppresses the shadowy images bubbling up from my subconscious.

“I want to forget,” I whisper. “Just for an hour.”

He nods and pulls my lips to his, kissing me deeply as his arms slip around my back. After a bit, he nibbles my neck, then my ear, and the warmth escalates into something urgent enough to make me squirm in discomfort. That’s the way I am. I go a day or a week or a month without being aware of my body, and then suddenly it’s there, making me uncomfortably aware of its needs. But my need runs much deeper than flesh. For the past year, I’ve lived with a growing emptiness that has threatened to swallow me whole.

“You have something?” I whisper.

“In the dresser.”

I slide off him and move to the dresser.

“Top drawer.”

When I get back to the bed, I stand looking down at him. He watches me with wide eyes, waiting to see what I’ll do. The base of my skull is still throbbing, but not so badly now. I’d give a lot to have my shoulders rubbed, but he’s in no shape to do that for me. Given what his doctor told us, he’s not in shape to do anything I have in mind. But I suspect he feels differently.