Blind Lake

But he didn’t tell her about that. “I don’t want to worry you, Marguerite, but your daughter’s here.”

“Tess? Here? Here where?”

“At the Eye.”

“She’s supposed to be in school. What’s she doing out there?”

“She’s not actually doing much of anything, but she did manage to sneak past the guards and wander down to the O/BEC gallery.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Wish I was.”

“How is that possible?”

“Good question.”

“So — is she in big trouble, Charlie?”

“She’s here in my office, and I don’t see the need to make a big deal out of this. But you might want to drive out and pick her up.”

“Give me ten minutes,” Marguerite said.

Tess was unresponsive while Charlie walked her out to the parking lot. She didn’t seem to want to talk, and she certainly didn’t seem to want to talk about how she had gotten into the complex. Before long her mom zoomed into the visitor lot and Tess climbed gratefully into the rear seat of the car.

“Do we need to talk about this?” Marguerite asked.

“Maybe later,” Charlie said.

On his way back to his office he took a high-priority call from Tabby Menkowitz in Security. “Hey, Charlie,” she said. “How’s Boomer these days?”

“An old hound but healthy. What’s up, Tab?”

“Well, I got a big alert on my nonrecognition software. When I checked the cameras there you were, escorting a little kid out of the building.”

“She’s a team leader’s kid. Playing hooky and curious about the Alley.”

“What’d you do, smuggle her in in a rucksack? Because we caught her when she was leaving but not when she arrived.”

“Yeah, well, I wondered about that myself. She said she just sneaked in when nobody was looking.”

“We have full coverage on our security cameras, Charlie. They’re always looking.”

“I guess it’s a mystery, then. We don’t have to panic over it, do we?”

“It’s not like anybody’s leaving town, but I’d really, really like to know where she found a back door. That’s absolutely important information.”

“Tabby, we’re under siege — surely this can wait until the big problems get solved.”

“This is a big problem. Are you asking me to just let it ride?”

“I’m advising you that she’s an eleven-year-old kid. Look into it by all means, but let’s not drag her into an official investigation.”

“You just found her down in the gallery?”

“She snuck up on me.”

“That’s pretty deep, Charlie. That’s a big hole.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Tabby was silent for a moment. Charlie let the silence play out, left it to her to make the next move. She said, “You know this girl?”

“I know her mom. Want another datum? Her dad is Ray Scutter.”

“Is there anything else you know? I ask because you’re the one who took her out of the building without notifying me.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that, but it kind of took me by surprise. Really, I don’t know any more about it than you do.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Honest.”

“Uh-huh. You understand, I do have to look into this.”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“But I guess I don’t have to process the paperwork right away.”

“Thanks, Tabby.”

“You have absolutely nothing to thank me for. Honest.”

“I’ll say hi to Boomer for you.”

“Give him a breath mint for me. That barbecue last summer, he was grossing everybody out.” She hung up without saying good-bye.

Alone, Charlie finally allowed himself to think about what had happened this afternoon. To mull it over in his mind. Except — well, what the fuck had happened? He’d been daydreaming in the O/BEC gallery and then the girl wandered in. Was he supposed to be able to tease some meaning out of that?

Maybe he’d give Marguerite a call after work.

In the meantime he had another question. He wasn’t sure he wanted it answered, but it would plague him like a headache if he didn’t ask.

So he took a breath and called his friend Murtaza in Image Acquisition. The call went through at once. “Must be quiet down there.”

“Yup,” Murtaza said. “Smooth like silk.”

“You got time to do me a little favor?”

“Maybe. I’m on break at three.”

“Won’t take that long. I just need you to look at the clocked image for the last hour or so, especially around—” He estimated. “Say, between twelve forty-five and one.”

“Look at it for what?”

“Any unusual behavior.”

“You’re out of luck. He’s just walking over the landscape. It’s like watching paint dry.”

“Something small. Something gestural.”

“Could you be more specific?”

“Sorry, no.”

“Okay, well, easy enough.” Charlie waited while Murtaza defined the time segment and ran a look-find app, zipping through the afternoon’s stored imagery. The scan took less than a minute. “Nothing,” Murtaza said. “Told you so.”

That was a relief. “You’re sure?”

“Today, my friend, the Subject is as predictable as clockwork. He didn’t even stop to take a leak.”

“Thanks,” Charlie said, feeling a little idiotic.

“Absolutely nothing. Just a little blip at ten to one. He kind of paused and looked over his shoulder. At nothing. That’s it.”

“Oh.”

“What, is that what you were looking for?”

“Just a passing notion. Sorry to have bothered you.”

“No problem. Maybe this weekend we can go for a beer, yes?”

“Sure.”

“Get some sleep, Charlie. You sound worried.”

Yeah, he thought. I am.

Twenty

Chris had spent most of the night consoling Marguerite. The fragmentary magazine page confirmed nothing but hinted at great danger, and Marguerite, anxious, cycled back repeatedly to the subject of Tess: Tess, threatened by Ray; Tess, threatened by the world.

He had run out of things to say to her.

She had fallen asleep toward dawn. Chris paced through the house aimlessly. He knew this feeling altogether too well, the double-barreled blast of dread and wakefulness that came with the morning sunlight like a bad amphetamine rush. He settled down at last in the kitchen, blinds open to the cobalt-blue sky, suburban-style row houses lit up in the efflorescence of dawn like tattered candy boxes.

He wished he had something to take the edge off. One of those anodynes that had once passed so easily into his hands, some soothing and euphoriant chemical or even a homely little joint. Was he afraid? What was he afraid of?

Not Ray, not the O/BECs, maybe not even his own death. He was afraid of what Marguerite had given him: her trust.

There are men, Chris thought, who shouldn’t be asked to handle fragile things. We drop them.

He called Elaine Coster as soon as the sun was decently up. He told her about the clinic, the comatose pilot, the charred page.

She suggested a meeting at Sawyer’s at ten. Chris said, “I’ll call Sebastian.”

“You really want to get that charlatan involved?”

“He’s been helpful so far.”

“Suit yourself,” Elaine said.

He woke Marguerite before he left the house. He told her where he was going and he put on a pot of coffee for her. She sat in the kitchen in her nightgown looking desolate. “I can’t stop thinking about Tess. Do you think Ray really means to keep her?”

“I don’t know what Ray might or might not do. The most immediate question is whether she’s endangered by him.”

“Whether he might hurt her, you mean? No. I don’t think so. At least, not directly. Not physically. Ray is a complicated man, and he’s a natural-born son-of-a-bitch, but he’s not a monster. He loves Tess, in his own way.”

“She’s supposed to come back Friday. It might be better to wait till then, see what he does when he’s had a chance to cool off. If he insists on keeping her, we can take steps then.”

“If something bad happens to the Lake, I want her with me.”

“It hasn’t come to that yet. But, Marguerite, even if Tess isn’t in danger, it doesn’t mean you’re safe. When Ray came to the house, that made him a stalker. He’s on a downhill slope. How smart are your locks?”