Riptide

“Understood.”

“And I’ll have to station two officers outside to watch the front and rear exits. That means just four of us to search the interior.”

“Five of us,” Je

Casey turned to her. “Like hell you are.”

“I may need to talk to him. If he tries to resist, I may be able to talk him down.”

“You think this is a movie? In real life we don’t bring in the suspect’s sister to get through to him. You’re staying here. End of discussion.”

He motioned to one of the patrolmen, a lanky kid with P2 stripes.

“Sullivan. You and Hanes are posted outside. One in front, one in back. Watch the exits. Anybody tries getting out through a window, grab him. We’ll give you periodic updates on tac five. Otherwise we’ll stay off the air as much as possible, and you do the same. And keep an eye on Miss Silence here. She is not to enter the hotel.”

Je

Casey ignored her. “Cox, Jorgensen, we’re going in.”

Sullivan sent his partner around to the rear and took up a position where he could watch the lobby door. Casey and Draper led the other two patrol officers up the steps.

“We don’t know what this mope is carrying,” Casey said to the uniforms. “If he resists, light him up.” He indicated the taser carried by one of the men, who nodded.

“Lot of trouble just to roust a bum,” one of the cops groused.

Je

Casey produced a set of keys, one of which unlocked the hotel’s front door. It wasn’t unusual for cops to have master keys to buildings in a high-crime district.

“Watch your six,” Casey said.

The men entered, the door closing behind them. Je

Casey’s voice crackled over Sullivan’s radio. “First floor clear. Heading up.”

She surveyed the scene. Maura and other civic boosters might talk about Venice’s comeback, but there was no sign of it here. Shopping-card people and zoned-out addicts wandered the street and adjacent alleys, scrounging in trash cans. Rap music throbbed from the coffee shop in a steady stream of expletives. Next door to the café was a tattoo parlor, and beyond it was an S & M shop, its storefront windows displaying nude ma

The concrete promenade called Ocean Front Walk was bustling with even more activity than usual for a warm Friday evening. The overflow from the boardwalk was swelling the crowd of lookie-loos. She wished no one were watching. She didn’t want Richard’s arrest to be a public spectacle. But of course everything in his life would soon be public knowledge, fodder for the 24-hour news cha

“We’re on the second floor,” Casey reported. “Found a squatter. Not our guy. We’re sending him down to the lobby and proceeding to the third floor.”

She couldn’t endure just waiting. To distract herself, she sca

“Hotel’s clear.” Casey’s voice on the radio. “I want Officer Sullivan to bring Je

Sullivan escorted her inside the Fortezza. The lobby was dark except for Sullivan’s flashlight. The beam passed over a ragged man clutching a backpack and looking lost. The squatter from the second floor.

At the foot of the staircase, Je

That was a long time ago.

They climbed the stairs. The banisters were grimed with filth, and there was a bad smell coming from the carpeted treads.

“You shouldn’t have to be in here,” Sullivan said with quiet solicitude.

“I’ve been in worse places.” She was thinking of the utility room in San Francisco.

The odor was worse in the fourth floor hallway, a potpourri of mildew and urine. They passed a row of doors, the room numbers written in black Magic Marker. Halfway down the corridor they found Draper and Casey in one of the rooms. The door had been forced—no great trick, given the cheap lock and wobbly frame.

Je

This was what he’d been reduced to. She wanted to cry.

“Is the stuff his?” Casey asked, reminding her why she was here.

Sullivan handed over his flashlight. She examined the items left behind in the room. On a rickety chair lay a library book about the Illuminati and Freemasons. Conspiracy theories. She flipped through it and found copious underlining and spidery marginal notes. Richard’s handwriting, she thought.

On the bureau, a dilapidated antique that listed drunkenly, she found a few other items. Some candy bars. One of the wanted posters put out by C.A.S.T., ripped off a utility pole or fence, the suspect’s computer-generated face slashed out.

And heartbreakingly, or perhaps ominously, a Polaroid of their father, the colors long ago faded to purple. In the picture, Aldrich Silence was smiling, but there was something strange about his eyes, something indefinable but wrong.

“They’re his things,” she said.

Draper seemed unsurprised. “This was the only room that showed signs of occupancy, other than the one the squatter was using.”

She looked around her. “It’s so awful,” she said softly, speaking mostly to herself.

 ***

The daylight was nearly gone by the time she left the hotel with Draper and Casey. The crowd of onlookers had thi

She paused, focusing on that sweatshirt. She had seen it before.

Sandra Price’s rally, in the gymnasium. The nervous figure rocking in a distant corner of the bleachers.

Richard had attended that event. In disguise. He’d told her so.

Casey was saying something, possibly to her, possibly to Draper. She didn’t hear it. His voice was far away, and all around her was an u

She took a step toward the onlookers, walking slowly, her arms at her sides, her head lowered, sending every body-language signal of disinterest. The hooded figure didn’t move, didn’t react.

She remembered Sandra Price saying that an unknown person in a hood had been spotted near one of the crime scenes. It must be the disguise Richard used when he went trolling for victims, or when he spied on her.

As he was doing now.

She entered the crowd, slipping past a large man with a porn-star mustache and a ski