Love Younger looked at the other men at the table. “My apologies, gentlemen,” he said. “My family has been through a difficult ordeal. I’m sorry that you’ve been witness. I’m sure we’ll see one another again soon. Thank you again for allowing me to participate in your mission. I think you’re a fine group of men.”
“We feel the same about you, Mr. Younger,” one of the seated men said.
“I have to say something else,” Gretchen said. “You’re educated and wealthy and have knowledge about foreign governments that only intelligence agencies have access to. But you use your education and experience to deceive people who never had your advantages. I’m not talking about these men here; I’m talking about people who never had a break. You exploit their trust and patriotism and inspire as much fear in them as possible. Tell me, Mr. Younger, do you know of any viler form of human behavior?”
The only sound in the room was the wind blowing through the trees behind the train station.
“Come on, Caspian,” Younger said to his son. “We’ve taken up too much of these gentlemen’s time.”
“I’m sorry I had to disrupt your meeting,” Gretchen said to the men at the table. “I admire the work you do. If I could have talked to Mr. Younger somewhere else, I would have.”
She walked outside, leaving Alafair behind, the back of her neck as red as a sunburn.
“Is there something you wanted to say, Ms. Robicheaux?” Love Younger asked.
“Yeah, you got off easy,” Alafair replied. “Your son is mixed up with Asa Surrette, a man who ejaculates on the bodies of the little girls he tortures and murders, the same guy who murdered your foster granddaughter. You’re a real piece of work. I’ve known some scum in my time, but you take the cake.”
“You can’t talk to me like that,” he said, his face quivering.
“I just did,” she replied.
ALAFAIR CAUGHT UP with Gretchen outside. “Where are you going?” she said.
“I think I’ll drown myself.”
“I’m proud of you,” Alafair said.
“For what?”
“What you said in there. The way you talked to those guys when you left.”
“What about it?”
“They know courage and integrity when they see it. They can’t say it to Love Younger, but they respected what you did. It was in every one of their faces.”
“Are you telling me the truth?”
r />
“You shouldn’t ask me that. I’ve never lied to you,” Alafair said.
“Care to explain why you’re looking at me like that?”
“Your smile,” Alafair said.
FROM THE MOMENT Felicity Louviere stole Gretchen Horowitz’s cell phone, she knew that her life had changed and that she would never be the same again. She also knew that nothing from her past life could possibly prepare her for the ordeal that lay ahead. As she drove away from the health club, there was a well of fear in her breast that seemed to have no bottom. At the red light, she looked at the impassive faces of the drivers in other cars, as though these strangers, whom she never would have noticed under ordinary circumstances, might know an alternative to her situation and somehow remove her from the scorched ruins that her life had become.
Her hands were small and powerless and without sensation on the steering wheel. She felt that a poisonous vapor had invaded her chest and attacked her organs and that nothing short of death was worse than living in her current state of mind. She drove through town, barely aware of the traffic around her, going through a yellow light without seeing it, ending up in a park on the north side of Missoula, not sure how she got there.
She turned off her engine down by the creek, in the shade of trees, and didn’t pick up calls. The creek was as clear as glass and rippling over rocks that were orange and green and gray-blue, but she could take no pleasure in the pastoral quality of the scene. She had never felt more alone in her life, except on the day when she realized her father had abandoned her to seek martyrdom in a South American jungle. For the first time since she last saw him, she understood the burden he must have carried to his death. The guilt over the killing of the Indians by the men he worked with must have been so great, he could have no peace until he atoned for them and himself. He did this, she was sure, in order to be the father he wanted his daughter to have.
She had never thought about her father in that way. That he’d chosen to travel the path up to Golgotha’s summit on her account.
Gray spots, like motes of dust, were swimming before her eyes. She opened the windows to let fresh air in the car and was surprised at how cold the weather had turned, even though the equinox was at hand. She got out and saw snow flurries spinning in the sunlight, sparkling in the branches of the trees that lined the stream. Her stomach was sick, her skin clammy; she could not remember when she had felt this light-headed. When she closed her eyes, the earth seemed to tilt under her feet. Gretchen’s cell phone vibrated on the dashboard. She reached back in the car and looked at the screen. The call was blocked.
“Hello?” she said.
“Who’s this?” a man’s voice said.