Something was very wrong with Lukas Croswell. You didn’t have to be looking the man in the eye to see that. His voice cracked along the phone lines in the same autocratic syllables, but there was as much force in them as the clicking of typewriter keys. “I apologize for disturbing you,” he said to Clare. “But I’m wondering if you would be in any position to get a message to Michael for me.”
She glanced at Sean, who was already reaching for his chess set as if nothing had just happened between them. If something actually had happened between them. Had it? Or had she merely imagined it? Willed it, maybe even?
“His name’s Sean,” she said.
“Sean, then, if you prefer.” Even the impatience in Lukas’s voice seemed perfunctory. “The point being, is there any chance you could get him a message? Quickly, if at all possible?”
“I don’t know,” Clare said, her eyes still on Sean. “Maybe you could tell me exactly what message you want me to relay?”
Lukas hesitated, then said, “I need to ask him ... about the last time we talked. He said things ... predicted them. I’d like to know if ... those predictions still hold?”
And all thoughts of what may or may not have happened between her and Sean vanished as Clare tried to process what she had just heard. “Dr. Croswell,” she said, “is something wrong?”
A long pause. A deep breath. “My son ... has gone missing.”
“And you think Sean had something to do with it?”
“I’d hardly call him if that were the case, now would I?” There might be a little more of the old snap in Lukas’s voice, but it was fleeting at best. By all accounts he seemed as bewildered as Clare. “I ... was hoping Mi—Sean might have some insight into ... I don’t know. Can you reach him? Please. I ... I need help. ”
The words died off, as Sean pushed aside the chess set with a sigh. “I’m guessing this is for me,” he said.
“Dr. Crosswell?” He listened, eyes closed, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. “Nossir,” he said, when the voice on the other end finished. “I honestly take no particular pleasure in this at all. Maybe when I was a teenager, I liked to gloat. But I like to think I’ve grown out of it by now.”
Another torrent of words, and Sean just shook his head. “Oh, for God’s sake, not you, too. Why won’t anyone believe me when I tell them that it’s not a Magic 8 ball?”
An angry burst cut him off. “I’m sorry,” Sean said. “Obviously, I’m well aware the niceties of a miracle investigation are not your main priority right now. But they are—how would you put it?—germane to the matter at hand.”
The next volley of words was enough to send Clare rocking back on her heels, even though she was halfway across the room. “I am trying to help,” Sean sighed. “But I can’t do that if you won’t listen to me. What I’m trying to tell you, is that I don’t see things. Or events. I see people. More accurately, I see into people. What’s inside them. What they know, even though they don’t know it.” He shut his eyes, then said, “Would you please just listen to me? You want to know about the last time we talked. I’m trying to tell you. And what I’m trying to get through your thick head is, maybe I’m the one who showed you how to read that old manuscript, but you’re the one who actually read it. Do you see what I’m trying to say? You were the one that figured it out. I just ... helped you see what you saw. Just like right now, if anyone knows what your son is going to do, it’s you. So I need you to think about it. Then tell me.”
A splutter, followed by a long silence, then a few, grudging syllables. Sean thought for a moment, then raised an eyebrow. “Actually, I’ve never owned a cell phone, let alone hacked or stolen one. And I can’t say as I know what a burner computer is either. But if I’m not mistaken there is a computer in the Outreach Center that matches the description ... wait, wait, Lukas! Don’t! You asked me to help, now let me do it.”
A moment’s pause, and then Sean said, “Because, with all due respect, I think the kid might be a lot more willing to talk to me than you right now.”
Another rush of words. “No, you’re right,” Sean agreed. “I don’t owe you a damned thing. But I will find your son and bring him home. And nossir, that’s not a prediction. It’s a promise.”
Sean moved to end the call, then stared at the phone, apparently flummoxed at how to do that. With a smile, Clare took the phone from him. As their hands touched, he stiffened, and then his attention shifted reflexively toward the chess set.
“We’d better get moving,” Sean said. “Although I honestly can’t see that it’s as urgent as Lukas seems to feel it is. I mean, how much trouble can a sixteen year old really get into?”
Clare raised an eyebrow. “Present company excepted?”
“Point taken.” He studied her, his expression inscrutable. “So I guess the honeymoon is over. Although I’m sure there would be plenty who would rather just say that you had one hell of a narrow escape there.”
She blushed. Had it really been a narrow escape? Had she really been on the verge of going to bed with him? And if so, what had she been thinking?
“What was all that about cell phones and burner laptops?” she asked. “What does Lukas think Jonas is going to do?”
“Something about uploading hacked information to the internet,” Sean said. “Which doesn’t really sound all that likely if you ask me. Honestly, how could a kid his age even know how to do that?”
Clare laughed out loud. “Clearly, you’ve never taught a research methods class. All you can do is pray that they’re hacking into the Pentagon instead of your Facebook account.”
“Brave new world,” he conceded. “I admit, I’m better with peat fires and hauling water in wooden buckets.”
Clare found herself wondering wistfully what it might have been like for the two of them in the Gaelteach. Could it have been real? Or was that just a fantasy every bit as stupid as Cosplay Lolita?
“Then let’s hope that the Outreach Center still has dial-up internet,” she told him. “That should slow him down.”
Sean was already in motion, pocketing the chess set and double-checking the straps on his fiddle case with swift efficiency. She slipped into the bathroom to get dressed and then eyed him as she tossed her few things back into her purse, wondering whether she was finally seeing him for what he really was. I like to run, he had told her. But this was more than liking. This was reflex. He was a creature moving on sheer instinct now. The only real question was, where was that instinct driving him to run? To save Jonas or away from her?
Sean glanced around the room, double-checking that everything had been gathered, before scrawling a brief thank you on the telephone pad, and tossing one of the twenties he had won at chess on it for the chambermaid. Of all the things not to forget, Clare thought, as she snapped shut her bag.
He grinned at Clare. “I tipped the room service waiter double that, but that was on the Englishman’s tab.”
Slinging his fiddle case over his shoulder, he took off, simply assuming she would follow. Only when they were out on the street, did he stop and turn to her.
“Clare,” he said, “if it matters, I’m very sorry it’s ending like this.”
And that was it. A valediction for a honeymoon. But was he really sorry? Or was he grateful to have been saved by—if not the bell—a ringtone from a cell phone?
“Who says it’s ending?” she asked. “We’ve still got plenty of money left over from the chess games. Save Jonas. Save the world. Then head to Danny’s for a celebratory drink afterwards.”
One look at his face, and she knew that wasn’t in the cards. “All right,” she said, “why don’t you just go ahead and say it?”
He reached for her then stopped. “Because I know you’re going to kick up a fuss.”
“And what makes you think that?” she demanded, oblivious to the irritated pedestrians that swirled around them. “The red hair?”
“If you’d prefer to chalk it up to some kind of angelic super-power, be my guest.” He looked down the street, avoiding her eyes, her hair. “The real point is, I hate to think my last memory of you is having pissed you off.”
“I don’t want you along when I talk to Jonas. What I want you to do is take a cab home. And when you get there, lock the door. And don’t answer it to anyone until you take a cab back to All Saints tomorrow, where you will meet with the lawyer. You should be relatively safe. Process servers prefer regular hours. And I have a feeling the Lazaritos will be ... otherwise occupied.”
She stared at him. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Not in the least.”
“But ... why?”
His face hardened. “Because right now, you are turning into a complication that I could genuinely do without.”
“A complication?” she spat. “That’s quite the sweet nothing to murmur in a girl’s ear.”
A passing businessman bumped into them; a woman loaded with shopping bags flashed them an exasperated look. What must they see? A pair of lovers quarrelling on the street—airing their dirty linen in public, her mother would have put it.
Sean seemed to have the same thought—or who knew, maybe he was reading her mind, calculating more possibilities. Whatever the case, they moved in unspoken accord to the relative shelter of the steps of St. Bartholomew’s Church before he said, “Apologies for being direct, but, please, Clare. What I’ve got to say to the kid, I’ve got to say alone. I’m sorry, but you would only be in the way. So please, don’t fight with me over this. Let me help Lukas now.”
She paused, remembering how close she had been to falling in bed with this man. And then remembering the carefully controlled despair in Lukas Croswell’s voice. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll go quietly, if you’ll answer one question. What did you mean when you talked about your last memory of me? Am I going to see you again? Or is the entire lawyer business in lieu of sending flowers?”
A flush stained Sean’s cheeks, and she knew what his instinctive answer had been. What his instinctive answer would always be. He blew out an exasperated breath. “The lawyer business is about me wanting—no, me needing—to know you don’t think you owe me. For me to know that when— if—you decide you want me, there are no lawyers, no process servers, no drug dealers in the equation. I need you to let the lawyer handle things. Get Trey Carey off your back. The Lazaritos, too. So you know your life is your own.” He hesitated before adding with careful indifference, “Then, if, in defiance of all logic, you still want me, you know where I live.”
She stared at him. “You know, a woman could get tired of these tests of loyalty. If you weren’t aware, you’re beginning to make Cupid and Psyche look like a picnic.”
Sean’s face set. “Choose me as I am or don’t choose me at all,” he said. “And I’d be the first to say you’re making the logical choice if you take the second option.”
And, without waiting for her to say another word, he took off down the church’s broad front steps and disappeared into the mass of pedestrians.