Jan Burke - Nine

“Sedgewick!”

“John, you’ve got to talk him out of it. Unless a lot has changed in the last few years, I can’t picture Chase surviving there. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to juvenile court to testify in an assault case or one involving some other violent offense, and watched a judge allow some vicious little jerk to be sent to Sedgewick instead of somewhere that might have done him some good-or at least protected the neighborhood from him.”

“I’ve heard stories. But I also heard they straightened some kids out.”

“Some kids did all right there,” Alex admitted. “Supposedly, the school rides herd on them. But unless you haven’t been telling me the truth about him all these years, Chase isn’t in the same league as these kids. Even the best of them is likely to have some kind of violence in his background.”

“Amazing what you can do with money, isn’t it? It’s off in one of the canyons, right?”

“Isolated as hell. Christ, John, why doesn’t Miles just tell the kid he’s sending him to Alcatraz? I don’t think he’d be half as scared.”

“Chase isn’t going there, not if I have anything to say about it. I’ll talk to Miles.”

“Might as well talk to Clarissa, too. Chase seems to think it’s her idea.”

“Clarissa? What mother would want that for her own son?”

“I never imagined Clarissa could be all that motherly. Am I wrong?”

“Clarissa’s not easy to understand.”

Alex laughed.

“Glad you’re amused. But I’m worried about the boy.”

“Me, too.”

“Are you?” he asked, brightening. “Well, then I feel better. Maybe I’ll be able to get to sleep. Good night.”

He went off to his room, and Alex turned out the lights. He lay in the darkness and thought of how neatly his uncle had managed to thoroughly involve him in his worries about Chase.

“You damned old fox,” he murmured.

Malibu, California

Wednesday, May 21, 6:03 A.M.

Kit slept in the passenger seat for about three hours, awakening just before they reached the California border. He had dreamed another of the old dreams and worried for a few moments that he might have talked in his sleep. But if he had, neither Meghan nor Spooky gave any sign of it. He woke to the sound of Spooky’s raised voice telling Meghan that she was on the wrong road and was going to cause them all to die in the desert. Meghan calmly denied that this was the case. Kit sat up.

“Now look what you’ve done!” Spooky said.

“Sorry,” Meghan said.

“She’s on the right road, and you’re the one who woke me up,” Kit said.

“I did not!”

He perfectly mimicked her dire predictions of death in the desert.

She folded her arms over her chest and kicked the back of his seat.

He stayed awake, answering Meghan’s questions about the cabin in Colorado. He tried to draw Spooky into the conversation by deliberately misstating how many rooms it had and how it was furnished, but she didn’t give in to whatever temptation she might have felt to correct him, so he gave a little shrug and told Meghan the truth.

Near Barstow, they stopped to stretch and get some coffee at an all-night diner. He took over driving again. Although Spooky had ordered a Coke and some fries-not eating many of the fries but apparently enjoying swirling them in a mound of catsup until they broke, one after the other-she steadfastly refused to enter into conversation. She put on headphones and started listening to her MP3 player.

She broke her silence somewhere between Pomona and Riverside to express her dislike of all she had thus far seen of California. She had never been to any city larger than Denver and was overwhelmed by Los Angeles and the heavily populated area that seemed to stretch endlessly around it. There was too much traffic, too many shopping malls, you couldn’t see stars in the sky. Kit knew he shouldn’t have let her have anything with caffeine in it when they stopped in Barstow-now she was overtired and cranky. Worse, for as long as they were in the car, Meghan would pay the price for that with him.

But when they reached the Pacific Coast Highway from Interstate 10, and she saw her first glimpse of the ocean just as the day was dawning, her criticism suddenly ceased with an abrupt “Wow.” She had remained fascinated all the way to Malibu.

“Is your house on the beach?” she asked, taking off the headset.

“One of them is, yes,” he said. “We’re going to be staying at the house in the hills most of the time, but don’t worry-we’ll go down to the one at the beach, too.”

“Will you teach me to swim in the waves?”

“Sure. You’re a strong swimmer, so it shouldn’t be hard for you to learn.”

“It looks kind of scary.”

“It can be,” Meghan said. “If you have a healthy respect for it, though, you’ll have a lot of fun.”

“What would you know about it?” Spooky snapped.

“I grew up here, near Kit’s house.”

“Are you going to stay at your own house, then?” Spooky asked, brightening.

Meghan laughed. “No, you’re not going to be rid of me after all.”

“Spooky…” Kit said, embarrassed.

“She made it sound like she lived here,” Spooky said defensively.

“I used to. After my mother died, we sold the house. I still live near the water, but north of here, near Carmel.”

Now he turned up the road leading to his home. “I should warn you,” he said, “that I’ve hired a security team. It might take a little getting used to…”

Meghan frowned. “I hope you haven’t gone to a lot of expense because of me.”

“No, they’re here most of the time.”

“You trust them with the house while you’re gone?”

“I’d trust Moriarty with my life,” he said.

“Moriarty!” Spooky shrieked in delight.

“Moriarty?” Meghan said, and gave an exaggerated shiver. “Didn’t you ever read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes?”

He smiled. “This one is no villain.”

“He’s the best!” Spooky said.

They approached a flat, concrete pad that extended several yards on either side of the car. A black wrought-iron gate and concrete-and-steel posts formed one set of barriers. Just beyond them, tall trees formed another. Meghan noticed that no branches were allowed to overhang the brick and wrought-iron fence that ran the length of the property. The thick fence appeared to be about twelve feet high. The gate was flanked by two pillars-cameras were perched on top of each.

A set of bright lights came on, illuminating the SUV and the flat concrete area around it, then the gate rolled open. A second, equally sturdy gate stood not far ahead. As Kit drove forward, the first gate closed behind them, penning the vehicle in a brick and iron box. A guard dressed in a dark green uniform and combat boots, wearing a sidearm, knife, and baton came forward.

“Good evening, Mr. Logan.”

“Good evening, Joe. ‘Long time the manxome foe he sought.’”

“Thank you, sir. Good to see you again.”

The guard spoke into a radio attached to the shoulder of his uniform, and the second gate opened.

“What did you say to him?” Spooky asked.

“It’s from Jabberwocky. A password of sorts. If I hadn’t said it, he would have known I was in some sort of trouble, perhaps being forced to drive in.”

“Teach it to me!”

“I’ll teach you Jabberwocky, if you’d like, but the password will change now.”

They came up a long, steep drive bordered by trees that kept the house hidden from the road. At the crest of it was a house that had been built in the 1950s along modern lines-a two-story structure that curved with the hilltop, with wide decks and tall windows of dark glass overlooking canyons and cliffs, and beyond them, the Pacific.