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It was as if Jagger were in some kind of trance. When Jeff had spoken to him, Jagger had barely reacted. He'd remained crouched down, slowly rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, watching the man die. Only when the man's last rattling breath bubbled from his lips had Jagger looked at him.
The hatred in his eyes had died away, and Jeff saw something else.
Desire.
Jagger's hand had come up-a hand still covered with the blood of the man he'd just killed-and reached toward him. Just before his fingers would have touched his cheek, his hand dropped away.
Then Jagger's eyes cleared and he glanced around the room as if seeing it for the first time. When his eyes fell on the corpse at his feet, he looked puzzled, as if he didn't know what had happened.
"He was go
But what? The man had been crazy, but he'd been far more terrified of them than they were of him. What had Jagger thought he was going to do? They'd just been lying there, and-
A memory stirred.
Something had disturbed his sleep. He'd been dreaming, and in the dream he was back in his apartment, in bed, and he could feel Heather beside him, curled around his back, nestled into him like two spoons in a drawer. Her arm had come around him as she snuggled closer, and-
– and he'd come awake when the man on whose floor he was sleeping grunted in sudden agony as the rusted rail spike sank into him.
Maybe it had been more than a dream of Heather's arm- maybe it was the man's arm wrapping around him that had cued the dream in the first place. And if it was…
He remembered again the strange look he'd seen in Jagger's eyes, and Jagger himself reaching out to touch him.
His reverie was interrupted by the sight of glowing light ahead. Not the orange nicker of one of the fires that seemed to burn everywhere in the tu
No, this was the bright light of the outside.
He picked up his pace, his pulse quickening as the shaft of light grew stronger. They found that the light came from a shaft leading up from the utility tu
"How we go
Jeff sca
"We gotta find a ladder," Jagger said.
Jeff didn't bother to reply. Instead, he was studying the screen of the cell phone he'd found. Holding his breath, he pressed the power button.
The battery indicator still showed only one bar, but the reception indicator showed two. Even as he watched, it flickered to one.
Then back to two.
With shaking fingers he entered Heather Randall's phone number and pressed the Send button.
Her number rang.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
"Be there," he whispered under his breath as the phone rang a fourth time. "Please be-" His words died on his lips as the phone clicked and he heard Heather's voice: "Hi-I'm really sorry I missed your call, but if you…"
The answering machine! The damned answering machine! He waited for the message to end, and finally heard the signal to start speaking.
"Heather? It's me! It's Jeff! Heather, listen carefully. I'm using a cell phone, and the batteries are about to run out. I'm in the tu
Cutting the co
Maybe he could get one more call in.
CHAPTER 26
Mary Converse looked at the old woman staring back at her from the mirror. Mary was only forty-one, but the woman she was looking at couldn't have been a day under fifty-five. Gray was showing in her hair-hair that seemed to have become thi
Jeff.
The vision in the mirror shimmered as her eyes filled with tears.
How was she going to do it? How was she going to get through this day? How was she going to sit in St. Patrick's Cathedral and say good-bye to her only child?
Be strong, she told herself. The Lord will never give you a load too heavy for you to bear. But she'd already been on her knees most of the night, praying for Jeff's immortal soul, begging every saint she could think of to intervene with God on her son's behalf. Her fingers were stiff from counting the decades of the rosary, and her knees were so sore that she wasn't even sure she'd be able to genuflect as she entered the cathedral.
But still she'd kept praying, begging for a sign that Jeff's sins had been forgiven and that he'd died in a state of grace.
None had come.
Taking a deep breath, Mary turned on the tap, soaked a washcloth in cold water, and wiped away her tears. God helps those who help themselves, she reminded herself. Stripping off her bathrobe and nightgown, she turned the shower on full force-and ice cold-then took a deep breath and stepped in. The freezing spray made her gasp, but she resisted the temptation of hot water and began scrubbing away the exhaustion of her sleepless night. After two minutes she could stand it no longer. Shivering, she shut off the water, stepped out of the stall, and wrapped herself in a bath towel.
The face that looked back at her from the mirror looked a little better: at least her complexion wasn't quite as sallow. Half an hour later, her hair dried and arranged into a tight French twist, dressed in the same black suit she'd worn to her mother's funeral five years ago, she surveyed herself one last time. Maybe-with the help of God-she'd get through the day.
And then the phone rang.
The sound so startled her that she almost dropped her cup, barely avoiding having coffee splash down the front of her suit. She set the cup on the counter as the phone rang again, and as she reached for the receiver, glanced at the little screen displaying the caller's identification.
The number on the display meant nothing to her.
She glanced at the clock: not even seven-thirty yet. Why would someone she didn't know be calling her at this hour?
The phone rang a third time. She knew she shouldn't answer it-she'd gotten the phone with caller ID to combat a stream of crank calls during the trial.
The phone rang again, and then the answering machine picked it up. After she heard her own voice inform the caller that she couldn't come to the phone, another voice, badly garbled, began to speak.
A frantic voice, shouting into the machine.
"… Mo-are you… it's me, Mo-"
Mary's hand jerked away from the phone as if she'd been stung. But as the words sank in, an incoherent cry rose in her throat and she snatched up the receiver.