Charlotte called Lieutenant Rodriguez at home but got his answering machine. Then she dialed the Gables special weapons and tactics number, and a rookie answered. He was manning the phones while the rest of the SWAT guys were out assisting a Metro hostage situation that was turning into an all-nighter.
So she broke with chain of command and called Frank Sheffield.
A couple of sentences into her explanation, Frank put her on hold and kept her there two minutes, three, while she stared at the thumbnail photo of Jacob Panther.
When Sheffield clicked back on, first thing he asked was if she had her handgun nearby.
“In the next room.”
“It’s to be used for self-protection only. Okay? No heroes.”
“You’re sending your people?”
“That’s right. SWAT.”
“Shit, Frank. By the time they get in gear, I could have a dozen Gables cops here. This part of town we’ve got less than a two-minute response time.”
“Forget it, Monroe. This is ours. It’s already in motion.”
“I’m going to catch shit from Rodriguez.”
“Rodriguez will be fine. You called him first, did it by the book.”
“How soon?”
“Choppers on the pad, firing up. Perimeter’s going up right now. I’m already in my car—five, ten minutes tops.”
For the last year Sheffield had been special agent in charge of the Miami field office. Ten years back she’d met him for the first time at a Miracle Mile bank robbery when the feds took over. Nice guy, not the usual stiff-backed hotshot. In fact, he was the only slacker she’d ever met in the FBI. Notorious for his maverick approach, his laid-back style. Everybody she knew in local law enforcement was amazed the guy hadn’t been canned long ago, and doubly amazed he’d been promoted to the top slot of one of the largest regional offices in the country.
“Can you tell if he’s armed?”
“You already asked that, Frank, and I said no, not that I can see.”
“Whatever you do, don’t let Parker in on it. No offense, but your husband’s liable to have Panther bailed out of jail before we can arrest the son of a bitch.”
“This isn’t funny, Frank. My family’s at risk. My daughter.”
At the groan of a floorboard in the hallway, she shot a look over her shoulder and in the same moment clicked her mouse to kill the FBI page. Nobody there. In that old house the oak planks were always creaking from the muggy air swelling the wood, the constant breezes stressing the rafters.
“This is a bad dude, Monroe. Eight homicides.”
“I’ve read the stuff on the site. I’ve got the picture.”
“Blown five banks so far, every other month for the last year. We got half a dozen agents with the Southeast Bomb Task Force out of Atlanta working full-time on the guy. Those boys are going to be pissed we made the takedown.”
“Got to wonder,” she said, “why the hell someone blows up banks.”
“We’ll ask him in a few minutes.”
Charlotte’s breath burned her throat. Chitchatting while FBI’s Number Eight was on her patio.
“I got to go, Frank.”
“Keep him distracted. Give him some wine, truffles. Whatever you people eat in the Gables.”
“Not funny.”
“Well, I guess this explains the airport thing.”
“What airport thing?”
“What, your power go off over there? A guy got assassinated at MIA this afternoon. Blowgun, poison dart. Eyewitness got a look at the boy who did it. Tall, heavyset, long hair. She thought maybe a Miccosukee or Seminole from the design on the shirt he was wearing.”
“Why do you say ‘assassinated’?”
“Dead guy was the son of some congressman, in town for some fund-raising thing. Gets whacked going down the escalator to baggage claim. Media’s playing up the political angle.”
“A blowgun? You can’t be serious.”
“Dart lodged in the neck. Unless the perp walked up and smacked him with a dart, which doesn’t seem likely, it was some kind of air-pressure weapon. Tribue went down—five, six seconds later, he’s cold.”
“And that fits Panther’s MO, a blowgun?”
“Not really. But he’s one of the names that popped when we ran the eyewitness stuff. Now here he is, standing in your living room eating liver pâté. So hey, two plus two.”
“Bye, Frank. I’ll leave the front door open. No need for the battering ram. Parker’s touchy about that front door. You damage it, he’ll sue.”
She slapped the phone down and turned to see Gracey in the doorway.
“So who was that, your boyfriend again?”
Gracey was holding a sheet of paper. The serene look had dissolved. Now her lower lip jutted, eyes frosted over as if the dizzy white noise was filling her head. In only a few moments her daughter had been swept up by the storm of molecules and mitochondria and assorted unruly chemicals. A cheerful, imaginative teenage girl body-snatched and replaced by a warped, fun-house-mirror version.
“I was discussing work,” said Charlotte.
“Yeah, right, Mom, whatever you say. But I don’t care if you have a boyfriend. Be kind of nice, really. Make you less boring. Give my life a little texture and dimension.”
“There’s no boyfriend, Gracey. Now stop that.”
She held out the paper and rattled it.
“Dad said I should get you to sign this.”
“It’ll have to wait.”
“It’s so I can do a ride-along with a Metro cop. An eight-hour shift with a real police officer. Go into the ghetto, the down and dirty world.”
Charlotte stood up, came over to Gracey, took her by the upper arm, and tugged her into the room. She leaned out, peered down the empty hallway, then shut the door.
“Steven thinks I need more life experience. Breathe some exhaust fumes. Experience some hard knocks.”
“Listen, sweetie, something’s come up. We can talk about this later.”
“I’m your daughter,” Gracey said. “Don’t my needs count?”
“Of course they do, you’re the most important thing there is, but…”
“Yeah, right. You spend all day pulling winos out of Dumpsters, you don’t have a lot left for your family when you get home.”
“Don’t say that, Gracey, you know it isn’t true.”
“Steven had a shitty childhood. Mega personal pain. He thinks I’m too sheltered to be a real artist. I’ll never get the depth into my work without more heartache, struggle.”
“Steven thinks this. Some friend from school?”
“Spielberg, stupid.”
“Oh, Gracey. Come on.”
“Jaws, you know, Mom. E. T., Jurassic Park. Just the biggest movies of all time. That Steven.”
“I know who he is.”
“Steven’s made me his protégée. He sees what I’m capable of. He’s chosen me.”
Charlotte measured a breath. Stay logical, the shrink said. Don’t buy in to her fantasy. Keep showing her the real world, its shape, its hard contours.
“You’ve spoken with him on the phone?”
“We talk all the time. He’s considering me for a project.”
Charlotte stopped, listened. She thought she heard the heavy thud of a helicopter but then wasn’t sure.
“I have to go, sweetie. If you want to do a ride-along, I’m not ruling it out. But we need to discuss it.”
“Rules,” Gracey said. “Everything’s against the rules. Rules, rules, rules. You know all the rules, don’t you, Mom? You got them all memorized.”
“I know some of them.”
“Well, Steven didn’t get where he is by following rules. No real artist does. They make their own. That’s what creativity is, Mom, in case you haven’t heard, breaking the rules. What you’re trying to do is suffocate me. Push all the air out of my lungs, sit on my chest, and turn me into some kind of mushroom fungus. A goddamn toadstool, that’s what you want me to be.”
“Okay, I’ve listened to you, now you listen to me. Go to your room right now, Gracey. I’m not mad at you, I’m not punishing you, and I won’t try to keep you from doing what you want with your life, but right now, this second, you have to go to your room, lock the door, and stay there till I come for you. Okay? There’s something going on. It’s a volatile situation, sweetie, and I want you to be safe. In your room. Now.”
Gracey bent her arm backward and dug her thumb at her bra strap, tugging it back into place. The artless gesture of a child wrestling with a twenty-year-old’s body.
When the strap was fixed, Gracey swung toward the built-in bookshelves in the corner of the room.
“I told you what the bitch would say. Didn’t I tell you?”
“Gracey, stop that.”
Staring at the bookshelf, she lowered her voice to a whisper, only a few words audible. “My life. Bruises. Haven’t forgotten.”
Charlotte reached out for Gracey, then let her hand fall. Fighting the instinct to wrench her daughter’s arm, shake her hard, do whatever it took to drag her back from that dark oblivion.
Gracey stared at the spines of the books and listened to the phantom voice, and nodded and mumbled some reply, then by slow degrees her eyes resurfaced and her gaze drifted from the shelves and settled on Charlotte. A grim mask tightening into place on her child’s face. Stanwyck, Bogart, the lifeless look.
“This is about him, isn’t it? That phone call, how you’re acting. It’s about Jacob.”
Charlotte glanced up at the ceiling, hearing it, the thrash of blades somewhere within a few blocks.
“I know who he is, Mom. I’ve got eyes. I’m not a kid you have to hide things from. You should’ve come out and told me. But no, you think I’m this little girl in gingham frocks, some goody-goody you have to protect. Well, it’s too late for that. I can see who he is. I’m not stupid.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Gracey.”
“You’re such a liar. I just talked to him in the hall and asked him straight out, and he said yes. He admitted it.”
“In the hallway? Just now?”
“Goddamn it,” Gracey said. “Why doesn’t anyone listen to me? You think if you ignore me, I’ll just go away. That’s what you really want, isn’t it? Well, okay, maybe I will. Maybe I’ll just leave. I’m wasting my time here anyway. The way you’ve tried to turn me into a privileged little brat. Always so goddamned worried about protecting me. Well, it won’t work, Mom. Know why? Because I don’t need any of this shit, and you know what else? I don’t want to be protected. Not by you. Not by anyone.”
Gracey gestured at the room and the house beyond it, then her head rocked back, shoulders trembled, eyes blinking rapidly. A full-scale meltdown. The tears welling, quickly brimming over, her nose running. Gracey fragmenting.
Charlotte put an arm around her shoulder, pulled her into a hug, spoke into her hair, into the smell of clover and rain. The girl shivered and twisted against Charlotte’s embrace, a token resistance, then she grew still.
“Look, sweetie, I want you to stay right here in my office till I come back for you. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t move. You’ve got to promise me.”
Gracey spoke through her tears.
“I need to e-mail Mr. Underwood, tell him I’m going to do ride-alongs. He agrees with Steven. I need more seasoning, more bumps and bruises.”
“Nobody needs more bruises, honey.”
Gracey tore away from the hug, her eyes wild and scarlet.
“What do you know? Driving around in your bulletproof vest all day, reading the rule book. What do you know about anything?”
“Okay, fine, e-mail your teacher. Use my laptop. Just stay here till I come back. Promise me.”
“Sure, Mom. Whatever.”