Haunted Air

"She's not back!" Eli said, his voice rising of its own accord.

"Then why, of all possible lambs, did you think of Tara Portman?"

"What time was this?" Strauss said, leaning forward again and refouling the air of the front seat with his breath. "That you thought of her, I mean."

"I don't know. I wasn't watching the time. Late, I'd say."

"You know what else happened late Friday night? The earthquake."

Eli remembered reading something about that. "I didn't feel a thing."

"But locals around here did. The paper said it was centered in Astoria."

"Dear God," Adrian whispered.

"Oh, come now," Eli said. "You can't seriously believe one has anything to do with the other. That's absurd!"

But was it? Eli felt an Arctic chill blow through the chambers of his heart. He couldn't let on how deeply the scenario Adrian and Strauss were describing disturbed him. It only heightened his feelings of being at the mercy of chance as well as the forces of nature itself.

"Perhaps it is," Adrian said. "But you can't help wondering, can you."

No, Eli thought. You can't.

He realized the only thing that would assuage this mounting malaise and uncertainty was another Ceremony to bulwark his defenses.

"For the moment," he said, "let's turn away from lambs of the past and focus on a lamb for the present." He glanced at Strauss. "Any progress in the matter of Ms. DiLauro's child, Freddy?"

"Some. I spent a little time watching her place today." He laughed. "I was wearing my old blues-they still fit me, y'know-and I waltzed them up to her door after I seen her leave her place alone. I figured if the kid was there, I'd pull the old your-mommy's-been-hurt routine, but she wasn't home. Learned from a neighbor's maid that she's away at camp."

"Really?" Eli said. He felt a surge of hope.

"Why are you fixated on her?" Adrian said. "We can snatch a child anywhere-"

"We've succeeded in lasting this long because we don't take chances. This situation has interesting possibilities. Think: A child disappears from a camp in the woods and the first thing everyone assumes is that she wandered off. They waste precious time beating the bushes for her when all the while she could be miles away, unconscious, in a car speeding toward the city..."

"Yes," Adrian said, nodding. "I see. Which camp?"

"That's the problem. This maid didn't know."

Adrian groaned. "Do you know how many summer camps there are in the tri-state area? We'll never find her."

Eli's mood sank. Adrian was right. There were hundreds, maybe thousands.

Strauss slapped the back of the front seat. "Never say never, my friend. I'm working a few angles. I've already recruited Williamson. He'll be full speed on the trail of little Victoria Westphalen tomorrow."

Wesley Williamson was a longtime member of the Circle and deputy director of the state banking commission. Eli didn't know how he could help, but he'd leave that to Strauss.

"He'd better hurry. If we don't complete the Ceremony by midnight Friday, we'll have to wait until next month."

Eli couldn't bear the thought of spending a whole month in his current state. Not just the fear and uncertainty, but the vulnerability, which was so much worse. His nameless enemy would have all that time to move against him.

"I'm doing my best, okay? This is short notice, but we'll get her. So sharpen up your knife for Friday night."

IN THE IN-BETWEEN

The entity that was Tara Portman floats in darkness and frustration. The one she was sent for has stayed away. She has something Tara wants, something Tara desperately needs.

She must find a way to bring her here. She thinks she knows a way. Tara touched her while she was here, perhaps she can touch her in another way, beyond these walls. Touch her and make her return.

And then what? What will happen to Tara after her purpose is finished? Will she be returned to nothingness? Anything, even this half-existence, is better than that.

Stay here. Yes... but not alone. She does not want to stay here alone...

THURSDAY

1

Break time.

Jack glanced at the clock above the Kentons' kitchen sink: 10:15. Was that all? Seemed as if they'd been working a lot longer than two hours. He sipped his Gatorade and considered the progress they'd made.

When he'd arrived, Lyle and Charlie had already started chipping away at the concrete along the edges of the crack. If there'd been a gap in the earth below after the quake, it was gone. Just a groove in the dirt now. Jack had brought along some blues CDs as a compromise between his kind of music and the Kentons'. He heard no objections when he put on a Jimmy Reed disk, so he picked up a pickax and joined in, swinging in time to the beat, chain-gang style.

He started off stiff and achy. Yesterday he'd worked muscles he rarely used and they awoke today tight and cranky; but ten minutes of swinging the pick loosened them up.

Two hours later they'd widened the gap to maybe four feet. Slow, hard work. And hot. The cellar had started out cool but the heat thrown off by the exertions of three bodies soon raised the temperature. Like a sauna down there now. Jack could see he was going to need lots of Gatorade before the day was through, and lots of lager after.

He and Lyle sat and sipped at the kitchen table in their damp T-shirts. The faint breeze through the windows and open back door carried little cooling power. Charlie had grabbed a paper and a donut and retreated to the shade of the backyard with the morning paper. He'd said little all morning.

"Something wrong with Charlie?"

Lyle's eyes gave away nothing. "Why do you ask?"

"Pretty quiet."

"He's just going through a phase. Not your worry."

Right. Not Jack's business why the brothers Kenton weren't getting along. But he liked these two, and it bothered him.

He dropped the subject. He lifted the front of his T-shirt and wiped his face. "Ever hear of air-conditioning?"

"Not much use when the windows and doors won't stay closed."

"Still?"

Lyle nodded. "Still. If I close them they don't reopen as fast as they used to, but eventually they do."

"Tara, you think?"

Another nod. "I get the feeling she's trapped here. She wants to get out-maybe she keeps trying-but can't."

Just then Charlie burst through the door, waving the morning paper. "Yo, Jack! Peep this!" He had the Post folded back and then in half, commuter style. He dropped it on the table and pointed to a headline. "Is this you, dawg? This yo' setup?"

Jack picked up the paper. Lyle came around and peered over his shoulder.

SHE SHOULD'VE KNOWN BETTER Elizabeth Foster, better known as psychic advisor Madame Pomerol, has had her second brush with the NYPD in one week. Just last Sunday morning she and her husband Carl were found wandering the financial district unclothed; but the charges are more serious this time: the Federal government is involved. Foster and her husband Carl were picked up yesterday afternoon trying to pass phony hundred-dollar bills at La Belle Boutique on Madison Avenue. The Treasury Department is investigating.

But things get worse. A search of their Upper East Side apartment-also known as "Madame Pomerol's Temple of Eternal Wisdom"-not only turned up thousands more of the fu

Jack had to grin as the article went on to describe the eavesdropping devices found in her waiting room, the electronic ear pieces hidden in her hats, the monitors, the trapdoors, and most damning of all, the files on her clients, filled with xeroxes of driver licenses, Social Security cards, bank statements, and notes containing more than a few scathing comments about their weaknesses, predilections, and obsessions. As a result, the Manhattan DA was preparing to add charges of fraud and conspiracy to defraud to the federal counterfeiting rap.