Two Graves

Pendergast’s gaze dropped to the papers on the table. He took a deep, shuddering breath.

“Recall my own child,” Constance went on. “When we learned of the threat posed to him, we didn’t hesitate to act. Even if it meant my being accused of infanticide. You must act now, decisively—and with violence.”

His eyebrows rose.

“Yes: violence. Great and decisive violence. That is sometimes the only solution. I discovered that for myself…” Her voice trailed off into silence, filled by the ticking of an antique clock.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice low. “In my preoccupied state I didn’t think to ask about your own child. You should have heard something by now.”

“I received the sign just five days ago. He’s finally in India now, away from Tibet, deep in the mountains above Dharamsala—safe.”

“That is good,” Pendergast murmured, and the silence fell once again. But even as Pendergast began to rise from his chair, Constance spoke again.

“There’s something else.” She swept a hand in the direction of the photographs and paperwork. “I sense something unusual about this Alban. Something unique in the way he perceives reality.”

“What is it?”

“I’m not sure. He somehow sees… somehow knows… more than we do.”

Pendergast frowned. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“I don’t fully understand it myself. But I feel he has some power, like an additional sense—one that in normal human beings is undeveloped or absent.”

“Sense? As in a sixth sense? Clairvoyance or ESP?”

“Nothing as obvious as that. Something subtler—but perhaps even more powerful.”

Pendergast thought for a moment. “I obtained some old papers, taken from a Nazi safe house on the Upper East Side. They pertain to the Esterhazy family, and they make mention of something called the Kopenhagener Fenster.”

“The Copenhagen Window,” Constance translated.

“Yes. The documents reference it frequently, but never explain it. It seems to have to do with genetic manipulation, or quantum mechanics, or perhaps some combination of the two. But it’s clear that the scientists working on the Copenhagen Window believed it held vast promise for the future of the master race. Perhaps it is related to the power you mention.”

Constance did not answer. In the silence, Pendergast clenched, then unclenched, his fingers. “I’ll follow your advice.” He glanced at his watch. “I can be in Brazil by di

“Take extreme care. And remember what I said: sometimes violence is the only answer.”

He bowed, and then raised his head again, fixing her with glittering, silvery eyes. “You should know this: if I ca

The detached, almost oracular expression faded from her face, and a faint flush rose in its place. For a long moment the two simply looked at each other across the table. Then, at last, Constance raised one hand and caressed Pendergast’s cheek.

“In that case, I wish you a tentative good-bye,” she said.

Pendergast took the hand, squeezed it gently. Then he rose to leave.

“Wait,” Constance murmured.

Pendergast turned back. The flush on her face deepened, and she looked down, not meeting his eyes.

“Dearest guardian,” she said in a tone almost too low to be heard. “I hope… I hope that you find peace.”

48

CORRIE STOOD OUTSIDE THE DEALERSHIP. IT WAS THREE o’clock in the morning, on a night as dark as sin, the air ten degrees below freezing. The ugly sodium lights blasted the rows of parked cars with a sickly yellow glow, glittering on the frost that rimed the windshields. They hadn’t given Corrie any keys to the dealership, but she had managed to swipe Miller’s when he left them around—which he did all the time, sending him into a fit of rage, searching and searching, cursing, kicking trash cans, and generally displaying his assholery in full bloom.

Corrie had expended a lot of research—and thinking—on the scam the salesmen were all so proud of. It turned out to actually be pretty common, known as a credit cozen. Miller had been right in saying it was widespread among dealerships, and rarely prosecuted. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that the only people at the dealership who would be threatened by such exposure would be the owners, not the salesmen. That meant the Riccos, Senior and Junior. If her dad had made good on his threat to blow the whistle, they were the ones with the most to lose.

Corrie decided to focus her attention on father and son.

Keeping well outside of the gaudy pool of illumination, she circled the dealership and came up to the building from behind, where the service and repair operations were located. There were still some area lights here, but the spot was hidden from the road; behind the dealership were only large cornfields, now rows of dry winter stubble.

She darted past the area lights and came up to the back of the building. There she slipped on a pair of latex gloves and waited. The place was empty, with no evidence of a night watchman or private security.

Or at least, none that was visible.

She crept around to the side entrance to the showroom. She tried the keys, found the right one, and entered.

Now—to keep the alarm from going off.

Earlier in the day, she had scoped the place out, noting the alarm keypads next to each door. That afternoon she had “accidentally” leaned on the keypad, pressing the red alarm button, setting it off and causing Miller to rush over and punch in the reset code. Which she had carefully noted. Now, as the warning light blinked on the pad and the LCD screen counted down, she pressed in the code. The light turned green.

The plate-glass windows of the showroom let in plenty of light from the lot—almost too much. Keeping to the shadows, she crept over to the Riccos’ small suite of offices—where the two men, offices side by side, shared a secretary in an anteroom.

The door wasn’t even locked.

She slipped inside and moved to Ricco Senior’s office. A row of fake wood filing cabinets lined the back wall. She took out the small pry bar she had brought, inserted it into the edge of the top drawer, and applied pressure. The drawer opened with a jerk and a snap of cheap metal.

The drawer rolled out to reveal a deep row of files—hundreds, it seemed. And this was one drawer out of twenty. Now that she thought about it, she had no targeted idea of what she was looking for. Proof of the credit-cozen scam? She already had that. What she would start with, she decided, would be her father’s perso

The first drawer contained only sales files. She flipped through them, forced open another drawer, then another. God, what a lot of paperwork.

After thirty minutes she finally arrived at the perso

She hesitated, thinking. Even though it would be obvious the place had been broken into, she couldn’t steal just his file—that would direct attention to him. No—what she’d do was steal a whole bunch of perso

She stuffed the SWANSON file into her shoulder bag and was starting to pull out other files at random when she suddenly heard a noise. The soft shutting of a door. Unmistakable.

She froze. She couldn’t leave the little suite of offices by a back door—there was none. The only way out was through the big glassed-in showroom, bathed in light from the lot. Even as she waited, she heard another door shut and the click of footfalls on the polished granite floor of the showroom.