Nine

Kit hesitated a moment more, then hurried away.

Alex fumbled as he set up the harness and rope, his hands growing stiff, his fingers suddenly clumsy. He heard the final chime just as he reached the window, and knew he could not possibly make it down in time. Strangely, knowing that released him from his fear. He thought of Chase safe with Kit and leaned back to enjoy one last rappel.

Kit heard sirens as he ran across the baseball field. He was slowed by his burden, but began to hope they might make it clear of the explosion. Chase had passed in and out of consciousness, protesting mildly about being carried, but Kit ignored him and moved on. His chest felt tight, but he knew it was not from exertion or the weight of the teenager on his shoulders.

Just as he reached the edge of the woods, he heard the roar of the bomb going off. Its force knocked him off balance, and the ground shook beneath them. He moved to shield Chase as debris rained down on them in hard little pellets of stone and mortar. A cloud of dust rolled from where the tower had stood. The buildings nearest to the tower collapsed seconds later.

“Alex!” he screamed, but there was no answer. He stood and saw Meghan and Spooky coming toward him. “Take care of Chase,” he called to them.

“Kit!” Meghan cried. “No-!”

But he had already turned back toward the cloud of dust that had once been stone.

He moved cautiously over the rubble. Fires were burning now, lighting his way, but the heat and smoke and stench were nearly unbearable.

He thought about the fact that he had been ru

There was still a fog of dust mixed with the smoke. It made his eyes dry. He coughed. As he moved closer to the tower, the air became worse. His nose and lungs hurt, as if he were breathing shards of glass. He coughed, then realized he hadn’t, but had heard, faintly, someone else’s cough. “Alex!” he yelled, but there was no answer-except the coughing. He crouched lower and followed the sound to the remains of one of the classroom buildings.

He heard a helicopter overhead now. It made it hard to hear anything else. A bright light shone from it, though, on him, and on a figure slowing freeing itself from a pile of rubble-a ghost. The ghost was completely white, except for his blue eyes, which were squinting up at the helicopter’s light. He coughed.

Alex.

Kit ran toward him, shouting, and then realized that a man who had been this much closer to an explosion wouldn’t be able to hear a thing, at least not right away.

Epilogue

One Year Later

Somewhere in the South Pacific

The man who had once been known as Everett Corey awoke with a headache.

He tried to dispel the lingering effects of whatever he had to drink the night before, to make sense of the situation he found himself in. He saw a woman’s navel come into view. It was a nice enough navel, he supposed, but she seemed to be upside down. It took him a little while to realize that, in fact, it was he who was upside down. That he was naked. That he was being held above the deck of a boat by a winch that was attached to ropes tied around his ankles. That his wrists, dangling uncomfortably below his head, were also bound. That there was a piece of duct tape across his mouth. There was something terribly familiar about it all.

“I think the roofies are finally wearing off,” the woman said. She bent down so that he could see her face.

She was pretty, even upside down. Her hair was thick and wavy, an almost apricot-gold color. She had large green eyes. She was athletic-looking. He smiled at her, as best he could.

Alex Brandon and Moriarty stepped out of the hotel bar and into the island’s afternoon heat. They began walking toward the harbor.

The hotel was favored by the most discriminating of American tourists. Everett Corey had not been a guest there, but a man matching his description was often found in its bar, buying drinks for those from his native country. Wealthy American visitors to the island found him a helpful man of many interests, who asked nothing of them but news of home. In the few weeks he had been on the island, he had become a favorite of the staff-he was a man of style and charm-and a generous tipper.

Last night, the bartender told him, was the first time he had seen the gentleman drink too much. The bartender swore he did not serve many drinks to him, but perhaps he had been drinking before he came to the bar. He didn’t behave obnoxiously. Everything was fine-he had left on the arm of a beautiful woman, a wealthy widow who was going to let him sleep it off on her yacht.

The bartender liked the newcomers, who were also generous and charming. He told them that the American gentleman was there almost every night-they should come back.

“You think he’s given us the slip again?” Moriarty asked.

Alex shrugged. He looked up at the clear blue sky, felt the warm sun on his face.

Moriarty gri

“No regrets about moving there. By the way, I talked to John a little while ago.”

“Let me guess. Emily and Chase were bickering. Rusty was barking, and John asked when the hell we were going to come back home.”

Alex laughed. “That’s about it. I could hear the fight in the background. Chase was calling Emily ‘Spooky.’”

“Damn. She must have really ticked him off.”

Alex felt contented with his new life, more contented than he had been in years. When the timing mechanism in the Sedgewick bell tower didn’t immediately set off the explosion, he had been able to escape with not much more than a few cuts and bruises, and two cracked ribs.

He had wondered what malfunction had kept the bomb from going off immediately. Kit said, “I don’t think it was a malfunction. It was intentional, I’m sure.”

“Then why-?”

“For the same reason Cameron didn’t kill you immediately with the garrote. If you enjoy the suffering of others, you don’t grant your victims a quick death.”

Alex stared at him as the implications became clear. “Everett pla

“Yes.”

• • •

Alex’s recovery had given him time to think, and to consider a job offer from Kit.

He had sold the house in Manhattan Beach, and John had sold his in Long Beach. They had bought a place together in the Rocky Mountains-Kit and Moriarty each had homes nearby.

A few weeks after the night at Sedgewick, John had a long talk with Clarissa, and later, another with Miles. Alex didn’t know what he had said to either of them, or if he had threatened Miles, but a decision had been made: Instead of sending him off to boarding school, Chase’s parents would allow their son to come to Colorado to live with his uncles, where he’d be home schooled by a reputable, credentialed private tutor. Alex suspected, from hints John dropped now and then, that Clarissa had made it clear that she would leave Miles if he failed to agree to this arrangement.

Alex had talked to her a few times, but only about Chase. Still, he found it eased something in him to do so, allowed him to feel as if their past didn’t have the bitter hold on him it once had.

They had all made it clear to Chase that he could return to California whenever he liked, for a visit or to stay. So far, he had remained in Colorado. Miles never called. Clarissa sometimes called when Miles wasn’t home. Alex noticed that Emily was always a little kinder to Chase after he got one of those calls. Sometimes he thought she had picked up Kit’s ability to read people.