Izzy Morris sat behind her desk, chafing at a morning full of delays.
Her office door opened, and Gene walked in, followed by Katie and Bart Owens. The old man was now dressed in a plain gray sweatshirt and jeans that Gene had retrieved from the hotel room where Owens had been staying. His bloody garments had been conveniently and quietly disposed of.
“Are you feeling better now?” Izzy asked Owens after they had sat down. Despite his remarkable healing, he had required more rest. Izzy had placed him in Sten’s office, covered him with a blanket, and let him sleep.
“I’m fine,” he replied. He looked curiously at her. “And you and I? Are we okay?”
Izzy slowly pulled in a breath. After Owens’s revelation that he might be responsible for her husband’s heart attack, she had first felt stunned, and then angry—angry at the old man for telling her, angry at Webber and Jack Sallinen for starting this nightmare, and, ultimately, angry at Stanley for attacking Owens.
Ever since Natalie had disappeared, roadblocks had been thrown up that kept her from finding her daughter; three days later and she was no closer to finding her than she was when she started. Owens’s admission had simply brought her closer to the snapping point. She suspected that he had seen her anger and had used his need for rest as an excuse to give her time to calm down.
“Yeah, we’re good,” she told him. “I guess I can’t blame you for protecting yourself. But knowing that was another complication I didn’t need right now.”
“How’s Stanley doing?” asked Gene.
“I called the hospital. There’s been no change in his condition. They don’t know why he won’t wake up.”
“And the State cops?” he added.
Izzy grunted. “I suppose that could’ve gone worse.” The State Police investigator had been your typical hard-nosed bastard. He asked all the questions she’d expected, and some that she hadn't. Ultimately, it had come down to the photos found in Jack’s office: they tipped the scales enough in her favor that she felt she would eventually be exonerated for shooting Carleton Manick. She just needed to bring Jack in to establish the connection between him and Manick. “I’ve still got a job for now.”
“What about the search for Webber and Mr. Sallinen?” asked Katie. “Any luck with the hotels?”
Izzy shook her head. “I’ve only had an hour to try and find them.” She looked at Katie and Gene. “Were you able to clean up the resource room?”
“There wasn’t much we could do about the door,” said Gene. “Or the file cabinet. But we picked up the debris and put the table back where it belonged.” He gave her that familiar lop-sided grin. “You’re going need the Extreme Makeover—Monster Edition crew to fix the place up.”
“Very funny,” she returned with a half-hearted smile. Then her attention turned to Owens. “You know Webber better than anyone. Can you tell me anything that would help me find him?”
Owens quietly regarded her. His blue eyes had lost none of their intensity, but the flesh under them was now darker than the rest of his skin.
“By now,” Owens began, “Darryl will know that his attack failed. That will likely send him over the edge for a while, but when he calms down, he’s going to redouble his efforts to find Kevin. That means he’ll have to leave wherever he’s staying.”
Izzy nodded. “I’ll put out an APB on his car.” An All-Points-Bulletin would have every law enforcement agency in the area looking out for Webber’s Silverado.
She picked up the phone. After she’d put out the APB, she asked Owens, “What if Webber gets to Kevin first? Where do you think he’ll go? Where should I be prepared to look?”
“Well, he lives in New Jersey, but I doubt he’d go back there. It’d be too obvious.” He glanced at Izzy and the others. “My guess is he’d head somewhere unexpected, so finding him would become very difficult.”
“But then what?” Izzy said. “If Webber gets Kevin, what’s he going to do with him? Is Kevin part of this war you talked about?”
“Obviously the boy’s relevant,” Owens said. “Otherwise, Darryl wouldn’t have been sent here, and I wouldn’t be trying to stop him.”
“What do you mean ‘sent’?” said Izzy, puzzled by the old man’s words. “Sent by whom?”
Owens hesitated. He pressed his lips into a thin, tense line. Izzy thought he was going to refuse to answer yet another question, but then he said, “He was sent by someone who’s been around for a long time.”
“There are two of you?” Izzy said, eyebrows rising in surprise. Gene and Katie gaped openly at Owens. “But I thought you were unique.”
“She and I are nothing alike,” Owens replied somewhat curtly. “True, we may share a certain predilection toward longevity, but that’s where the similarities end.”
“Who is she?” Gene asked. “Did she come here with Webber?”
Owens shook his head. “I doubt very much she’s here. She doesn’t like to get her hands dirty at this level. And it’s much safer if you don’t know her name. It will give her less of a reason to be focused on you.”
“So Webber works for this woman,” said Katie. And, like earlier this morning, there was a look on Katie’s face—a sort of curious fascination—that bothered Izzy. “Who works for you?”
“I have a friend who helps out,” said Owens, and Izzy remembered the phone call he’d made earlier to the mysterious Phil. “But I won’t have others fight my battles. I won’t risk getting anyone killed.”
Izzy absently rubbed her hand, even though the pain from striking Owens had long since vanished. It was still hard to believe what the old man was saying. He was describing something that sounded less and less like a covert government operation, and more like…what? Some kind of ongoing conflict between two people who couldn’t possibly exist? Between people who had apparently been alive for well over a hundred years. And that thought led to a question.
“Can you be killed?” she asked Owens.
“Certainly,” he said. “Anyone can die.”
“And besides the pain thing,” she continued. “Is there anything else I should know? Anything else you can do?”
“Like what? In the past, I would’ve been asked if I could fly, or if I had X-ray vision. I suppose now it would be, can I change shapes? Am I a vampire or werewolf or some such nonsense.” He shook his head. “Don’t you think that if I could ‘do’ anything else, I would’ve done it during the attack? Rather than get mauled?”
Izzy felt her face grow warm with embarrassment. “I’m sorry. It’s just that this is all so hard to believe.” Her mind wandered back to her original question. “You never did say what was so special about Kevin—what makes him so important to you. And this woman?”
“Yes, the question of Kevin,” Owens said, looking uncomfortable. “Well, you know that he’s autistic. But it’s his type of autism, von Kliner’s syndrome, which makes him extraordinary.”
“That’s what I don’t understand,” Izzy said. “It’s autism. A disability. The poor boy can barely function. And yet, you’re telling me people are worth killing to get a hold of him.”
“I know it doesn’t make much sense to you,” Owens said, “But—”
Before he could continue, Officer Al Hamilton popped his head into her office.
“We just got a call from Luce County,” he said. “They brought J.J. Sallinen into Newberry Hospital. Found him at a motel outside of town. He’s been beat up pretty badly.”
Everyone exchanged startled glances. They had forgotten about J.J..
“Is he going to be okay?” Izzy asked.
“That’s the thing,” said Al. “The guy who found him? He thinks somebody tried to kill him.”
Izzy was reaching for the phone before Al’s words had time to fade away.