The sky was decanting its last ninety minutes of light when Ancel and Clare rode out of Sacket Ranch, overland toward home, where they would not arrive until well after dark. The day was mild, but either the plains began to give up what little heat they had stored or some unknowable observer behind the apparent reality of land and light saw fit to color the moment mystic, because as they receded, a watery blue corona formed around them, into which they passed as if not only into the distance but also outside of time.
When Jane was moved to turn from the sight of her in-laws receding, Luther turned away as well. “So I guess…San Diego.”
“It’s a nice city. Go, Padres.”
“Otis Faucheur’s builder son?”
“Name’s Wilson Faucheur. I need to know about building codes.”
“But in San Francisco.”
“Otis said Wilson’s done some things there, too.”
“If you could wait a few days, then I could help you.”
“Can’t wait. Or won’t. Anyway, it’s best you bring your family safely here while you still can.”
“Once I do that, you’ll know how to find me.”
She looked at him and smiled and clapped him on the back. “If they decide to make you number two on America’s most-wanted list, you won’t be able to go out and about. Big and black as you are, you can’t just put on a blond wig, some makeup, and pass unnoticed.”
“Shave my head, grow a beard, go a little gangsta with my wardrobe.”
“Get your family, Luther. Maybe bald, bearded, and badass will be almost enough of a makeover if I need to call you down the road.”
She felt something crawling on her left hand and raised it from her side and saw a dewdrop-size ladybug born into the world too soon in the season, bearing its black-spotted orange shell from knuckle to knuckle.
Luther said, “So D. J. Michael’s apartment is on the ninth floor?”
“He financed the building. He owns it. He has the entire ninth floor to himself, four apartments’ worth of space folded into one. And the way I’ve been told, the eighth and tenth floors are part of his security system.”
“Way up in the middle of the air. How do you get there?”
“One way or the other.”
The ladybug reached the base knuckle of her index finger and continued its exploration around the side of her hand, through the purlicue between thumb and finger. She turned her palm up to follow the bug’s progress.
“What do you think you can get from him?” Luther asked.
“A video confession. The names of his co-conspirators.”
“Tall order. He has that crazy big-vision thing going on, king of the world now but going to make himself god of all.”
“I don’t expect him to be easy.”
“It’ll take time to break down a man like that, so sure of himself. Even if you get to him, you won’t have a lot of time.”
“I’ll have enough.”
The ladybug paused in the anatomical snuffbox of Jane’s hand, as though surveying the way ahead and considering the possibilities of her palm.
After a silence, Luther said, “You’re scaring me a little now.”
“I doubt that.”
“I mean, scared for you. You have what it takes, but you also need some luck. You’ve had a long run of luck in this. But nobody’s luck holds forever.”
The ladybug started to follow Jane’s heart line but then turned into the lifeline, making its way toward her wrist.
“Suppose you get to the ninth floor and then everything goes wrong.”
Abruptly the ladybug took wing, and watching it, Jane said, “Then I’ll fly.”