Bloodline

5

Jack had left Levy at the diner and spent what was left of the afternoon and the early evening searching for Dawn—but circumspectly. He couldn't ask too many questions, couldn't put word out on the street. Not with the agency looking too. If they heard someone else was asking about the same girl, they'd want to know who that someone might be.

Whatever. The search had been fruitless. Dark had fallen with not a sign of her Jeep. For all he knew she'd left the state. But that seemed unlikely. She had no family. Where could she go except home or to a friend? No sign of her at home, and Christy had said she didn't have many friends, but that didn't mean she wasn't crashing somewhere.

Jack had a feeling she wasn't far from home. So he kept searching. Sooner or later he'd spot that Jeep.

But not in the dark.

The Queensboro Bridge loomed ahead. And beyond that, the blaze of Manhattan. Gia would be waiting, but he couldn't face her now. She'd know immediately that something was wrong and quiz him till he told her. He had to get used to this oDNA thing.

Used to it… odd way to think. He'd carried it all his life but now he had to get used to it. No, he had to get used to knowing about it.

He called her and told her he'd be spending the night at his own place.

"How come?" she said.

"This thing I'm working on. I might get called during the night and I don't want to disturb the whole house."

He didn't mind lying to other people, but he hated lying to Gia. Some-times the nature of his business made it necessary. Tonight the reasons were personal.

"Don't worry about that."

"It's better this way."

A pause, then, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Something's wrong, I can tell. You're in danger, aren't you, and you're afraid to bring it here."

"No, it's nothing like that, I swear."

They went round and round on that for a while until Jack semicon-vinced her that he wasn't in danger and that everything was cool. He ended with a promise to see her tomorrow—if not for breakfast, definitely for lunch.

He hung up and approached the on-ramp to the bridge feeling like he'd swallowed fishhooks.

6

Go jump off the Brooklyn Bridge … what a total cliche.

But why not?

Except she'd just driven over the Brooklyn Bridge and didn't see any way to jump into the river off its raised walkway. So she'd headed uptown.

But now, as she drove along, she had this weird growing sensation that she was being followed. Very much like the feeling she'd had in the bathroom when she'd felt she wasn't alone. Had Jerry somehow spotted her?

Feeling totally freaked, she locked her doors and pulled over to let traffic pass and see if anyone else stopped. But everyone behind her went by and kept on going.

Must have been her imagination.

She parked her car in a garage near the Queensboro Bridge. Who cared what it cost? She wouldn't be around to pay for it. Then she started walking toward the center of the span among the bicyclists and other pedestrians, mov-

.

ing slowly, stopping every so often to rest. So tired. She hadn't lost enough blood to kill her, just enough to make her weak. The center was so far. Half a mile at least.

Nice going, Dawn. Talk about doing a half-assed job.

Just her luck she'd pass out before she reached the middle. The EMTs would arrive, see the cut on her wrist, and take her to the loony bin in Bellevue where she'd be locked in under a suicide watch.

Yeah, that would be perfect. Totally in keeping with the mess she'd made of the rest of her life—mess up her death too.

No, not this time. But when she reached the middle—what?

She hadn't counted on the chain-link fence. It had to be like seven or eight feet high. She'd have trouble climbing that on a good day. Today—forget about it.

But she had faith in the destructiveness of some of her fellow New Yorkers and in the quality of the city's maintenance: Somewhere along the way she'd find a gap large enough to squeeze through.

As she neared the middle she found one. She could do this. All she needed to do was climb to the top of the chest-high railing, squeeze through the opening, and take that one giant step. That was all. Just one step and gravity would do the rest. She'd read where people who jumped from this high hardly felt a thing—like hitting a brick wall at a hundred miles an hour. Or something like that.

She waited for a break in the pedestrian traffic. Not too many strollers at this hour. She'd never walked the bridge before so she had no way of knowing if this was a light night or a heavy night. No matter. As long as they gave her enough time to climb the railing and—

Climb the railing. Oh, God, could she even do that? She felt so weak.

She shook her head. She'd find a way.

She looked around. Nobody nearby on either side, nobody closer than half a football field. This was it, this was her chance. Do it now or never.

As she stepped onto the first of the three railings she heard a voice behind her.

"Dawn! Dawn, thank God I've found you!"

She turned and saw a big black car. It had stopped and a man was looking at her through the open passenger window. She couldn't quite make out his fact;.

"How—how do you know my name?"

"I worked for your mother. She hired me to investigate your boyfriend."

Dawn screamed, "Then it's your fault!"

He shook his head. "We both know whose fault it is."

His words cut so much deeper than the razor ever had.

"Me? You think it's my fault?"

He opened the passenger door. Cars started backing up behind him. Long, angry honks filled the air but he didn't seem to notice. Or if he did, he didn't care.

"Not at all, Dawn. You were a pawn. Jeremy's to blame."

A line from the letter flashed in her brain: The man you know as Jerry-Bethlehem…

"Jeremy? Is that his real name?"

The man nodded. "A creep with a long ugly history."

"And I totally fell for him. Like a jerk."

"He has a natural talent for seduction. Get in and I'll tell you all about him."

The light wasn't good, but she could see now that he had dark hair and soft eyes. The other drivers were swerving around him, honking, screaming, giving him the finger in various combinations.

He smiled as he glanced at them, then sniffed. "Road rage… it adds a certain sweet tang to the air, don't you think?"

When Dawn saw him rising out of the car she pressed back against the fence.

"No. Don't come near me! I'm so ready to do this and no one's go

He stood by the open door and raised his hands.

"Not one step closer, I promise. Just listen."

Something in his voice, his eyes… he was kind of good looking but not too. She had an odd feeling she could trust this man. But—

"Nothing you can say is go

A guy on a bicycle slowed as he approached. He was looking straight at her.

"Hey, you go

"No, she is not," the man said. "Keep moving."

The cyclist speeded up as he passed, muttering something about never having any luck.

The man said, "Your mother asked me to look after you."

"What? You're lying!"

"I didn't understand it myself at the time, but now I believe she had a premonition that she was going to die. She said if anything happened to her I was to find you before you did anything foolish—"

"No way! Now I know you're lying. She—"

"Those were her exact words—I swear. She seemed to sense that you'd blame yourself for whatever happened to her and she wanted you to know that she never stopped loving you."

Dawn began to cry. "I totally hurt her! I deserve to die—I need to die!"

"She seemed to know you'd feel that way." His voice was like a soothing caress, stifling her sobs, drying her tears. "And she wanted me to tell you th^lt if you love her, you will not do this."