In Dark Places

Now, with classes resuming and Meg's return expected, the entire student population would be waiting for her. Robin pictured them as vultures in gray-and-white uniforms. The image, she admitted, was probably unfair.

Meg saw her mother watching her. She smiled. "Don't worry, Mom. I can handle it."

Of course she could. She'd proven she could handle anything.

"Sorry," Robin said. "You're right. You'll be fine."

"Better believe it. Everything's copawell, you know."

"Copacetic. You can say it."

"Even though it's his word?"

"He doesn't have a monopoly on it."

Meg finished the first granola bar and started on the second. "Any plans for today after you drop me off?"

"Nothing special." She hated lying to Meg, but she didn't want to talk about it.

"No patients?"

"In the afternoon. Morning's free."

Meg seemed to sense that this topic was going nowhere. "Happy with the new office?"

"It's a big improvement. Working there, I feel almost like an actual urban professional."

"You may need to start carrying a briefcase."

"Let's not get carried away."

The fire had rendered Robin's previous office unusable. She had no desire to remain there anyway. She had relocated to a building in the mid-Wilshire district, a safer neighborhood, but still within reach of downtown.

Downtown. The prison, she meant. The population of convicts who had served as her test subjects.

She wasn't treating any of them now. The loss of her MBI gear in the fire had given her an excuse to suspend her experimental program. But new equipment was being made to order and would arrive soon. Then she would have to decide what to do with it. It could be used for purposes more prosaic than rehabilitationfighting phobias, for instance. She wasn't sure if she would be satisfied with curing people's fear of spiders when millions of prisoners remained warehoused in jails.

Still, maybe the jails were where they belonged. All of them, forever. Lock them up, throw away the key.

She wasn't sure. Her old certainties had died on the night of Gray's rampage. She hadn't found any new truths to replace them. Not yet.

"Better get a move on," she told Meg. "Don't want to be late for your first day back. How would that reflect on me, your doting mother and unpaid chauffeur?"

"Badly."

"That's what I thought."

"Just let me brush my teeth. I intend to do a lot of smiling today."

Robin thought that was good. Her daughter was due a few smiles.

The Saab had been repaired and repainted. At first Robin hadn't liked driving a car that Gray had used. It seemed to be imprinted with his presence. Finally she'd taken it fifty miles up the coast with the windows open, the sea air whipping through. The trip had cleansed the car, expelling whatever psychic residue had lodged there.

She drove Meg the short distance to the Gainesburg School, where other parents were letting off uniformed kids with backpacks and bookbags. The scene appeared so normal, just a part of everyday life. And so it was, but Justin Gray was part of life, too. The miracle was not that the two parts ever intersected, but that they intersected so seldom.

"Mom? You okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"You've been kind of brooding and uncommunicative all morning."

"I'm preoccupied, that's all."

Meg made a move to get out of the car. She hesitated. "You're not worried about me, are you?"

"Going into the lions' den? Nope. I know you can handle it."

"That's not what I mean. You're not amp; well, you're not worried about me being on my own again?"

And screwing up like I did last time; Robin heard the unvoiced words. Screwing up with Gabe.

There had been many long talks between them on that subject, and Robin knew there would be many more.

"I'm not worried," she answered. "It's fu

Meg smiled. "Delayed reaction to stress? Post-traumatic dissociative depersonalization with delusions of happiness?"

"If it's a delusion, I'll take it. Get going now. Good luck."

"Won't need it," Meg said, leaving the car.

Robin watched her walk into a crowd of students who clustered around her. When Meg was lost to sight, Robin put the Saab in gear and drove away, checking the dashboard clock.

Her morning wasn't as open as she'd said. She had an appointment at ten a.m.

Downtown.

Gray was waiting for Robin in the interview room on the eighth floor.

It had taken him six weeks to recover from gunshot wounds to the groin and abdomen. Four bullets had hit him out of the sixteen she'd fired, emptying the Beretta's magazine. His condition had been critical for the first few days, but gradually he'd improved, and now he was healthy enough to be reinstalled in his old cell in Twin Towers.

The doctors had told Robin that Gray demonstrated a remarkable will to live. She hadn't been surprised. Whatever else he might be, Justin Gray was a survivor.

He was seated at the table, secured with handcuffs and leg irons. He smiled when the guards escorted her inside.

"What's up, Doc?"

She took the seat opposite his. The guards remained with them, standing silently by the door.

"How are you, Justin?"

"Took a licking, kept on ticking. Got me some fine scar tissue. It's like body art. I'd give you a look, but I don't think the Deputy Dawgs would appreciate me undressing in front of a lady."

"Probably not."

"You shot me up good, Doc. Regular Dirty Harriet, you are. Bona fide Jane Wayne."

"It was amp; instinct."

"Killer instinct." He said it with a smile.

There was silence, neither of them knowing what to say.

"Been watching the TV," Gray offered. "Nasty little conspiracy them crooked-ass cops had going."

"Yes, it was."

"That motherfucker, Wolper, and that other dudewhat's his name?"

"Ba

"Looks like they're ratting each other out. DA's playing one against the other to see who can squeal the loudest."

"That's about it."

"Couple of prize scumbags, ain't they?"

"Yes," Robin said. "They are."

Ba

According to Hammond, Ba

When the cell phone trace led Hammond to the factory, Ba

"Buncha other assholes are implicated," Gray was saying, "but they're all low on the totem pole." He leaned forward. "You want my take on it? I say there's higher-ups involved, and they're getting protected."

He could be right. "I don't know," Robin said.

"That's how it always is. Fucking cops take care of their own. The big ones will walk away. Always do. It's the little guys that get it up the ass, every time."