First Daughter, page 30
What have I gotten myself into? Jack asked himself. "Why would anyone want to make a move against me?"
"We'll get to the details in a moment," Paull said. "Now, suffice it to say that you're Edward Carson's man. As you might imagine, the president-elect is seen as something of a threat to certain individuals in the Administration. There's an initiative to get certain matters the president deems pressing sewn up before the twentieth."
"Like rounding up the First American Secular Revivalists."
Paull nodded. "Among other suspect groups."
"The FASR's only crime is that their philosophy is in direct opposition with the current Administration's," Jack said.
"As you no doubt understand, Jack, this Administration has serious perception issues. The world—and the players in it—are what it says they are, no matter the reality."
"Don't you understand that the FASR is being made a scapegoat?" Jack said. "You guys can't find E-Two, so you're going after the easy target."
"Please don't confuse this Administration with the truth, Jack." The secretary shifted in his seat. "Now, I think you may have an answer for me. You know a man named Ian Brady."
It wasn't a question, and Jack's eyes sought out Nina's again. "Yes, sir. Twenty-five years ago, he was a major drug supplier in my old neighborhood."
"Which was?"
"Not far from McMillan Reservoir."
Secretary Paull passed a hand across his brow. It was clear Jack had delivered his answer; trouble was, it was the answer Paull had been afraid of because it confirmed his dark analysis of who Ian Brady really was.
"You need to forget McMillan Reservoir, Jack."
"That's a bit hard to do, sir. This man, Ian Brady or Charles Whitman or Ronnie Kray, whatever he's calling himself today, is the one who abducted Alli Carson and murdered her Secret Service detail in cold blood."
"Nevertheless, you must forget him."
Jack would have said, What the hell are you talking about, sir? except he knew exactly what Paull was saying. The last piece of the puzzle he'd been assembling in his head—the most crucial one—had just fallen into place. No wonder the IDs of the vics at McMillan Reservoir were never revealed. It was the same reason that the crash of the Dark Car and the deaths of the two agents in it never made the news.
Jack's mind replayed the moment at McMillan Reservoir when he'd followed Gus and Detective Stanz, when Gus's snitch said, "I guarantee you'll never get the name of the murderer, either from me or anyone else."
"Brady's protected," Jack said to Paull. "You're protecting a serial murderer, a kidnapper."
"Not me, Jack. The government. That's why the order to my Dark Car agents was countermanded at the highest level. There was concern that you were getting too close to Brady."
"A legitimate concern."
The secretary's face looked like you could pass a steamroller over it without making a dent. "This is a matter of national security."
"How many illegal acts have been committed in the last eight years in the name of national security?"
"Jack, please. This is a friendly memo—the most friendly."
"I understand, sir. But I have to do this."
Paull breathed out a long sigh. "Look, I'm trying to protect you, you do understand that?"
"Yes, sir, I do, but that won't change my mind."
Paull looked away. He hadn't for a moment thought he'd change Jack McClure's mind, but he had to be absolutely certain of this man.
"From this moment on, you're on your own." Paull said this very softly, very distinctly.
"I'm prepared for the risk." Jack knew nothing would be settled inside himself until he hunted down Ian Brady and either brought him in or shot him dead.
FORTY - TWO
HOW I wish you and Jack were my parents!"
"Good Lord!" Sharon was standing in the kitchen. So astonished was she by Alli's statement that she dropped the egg she was transferring from its carton to the heated pan. The yellow yolk burst like a water balloon, slowly threading across the stove top, through the clear, glutinous albumin.
She'd gone with her first instinct, which was to make Alli something to eat, so they had repaired to the kitchen, a room that always made her feel secure. If she was being honest with herself, Alli's presence here unnerved her, though her nervousness had nothing to do with the fact that Alli was the president-elect's daughter. It was all down to the fact that Alli had been Emma's best friend. They were the same age, and though one would hardly be taken for the other, it was difficult for Sharon to look at Alli without seeing her own daughter. She was beset by a profound ache she thought she had put aside. The poisonous stone of Emma's death was still inside her.
Mindlessly, she turned off the burner, began to sponge up the mess. "Why on earth would you say such an extraordinary thing?"
"Because it's true."
Sharon wrung the remains of the raw egg into the sink. She held the broken shell in her cupped palm. "But I'm sure your parents are wonderful people."
"Excuse me, but all you know about my mom and dad is what you see on TV or read in magazine articles," Alli said.
She stood with her back against the pass-through into the living room. She appeared to Sharon to be poised beyond her years—certainly more poised than Emma had ever been. What I wouldn't have given for a child like this, a voice inside her wailed. And immediately she put a hand to her mouth, appalled at the thought. God forgive me, she moaned silently. But her quick prayer of penance made her feel no better, just dirty. She panicked for a moment; if prayers no longer worked for her, what would? The truth of it is that prayers are only words, she thought, and of what comfort are words at a time like this? Hollow things like the shell of an egg with the inside drained away.
"You're right, of course," she said, desperately trying to soothe her way back into normalcy. "Please forgive me."
"There's nothing to forgive, Mrs.—Sharon."
Alli came and took the glistening shell out of Sharon's hand. In that moment, their hands touched and Sharon began to weep. It took only an instant for the dam to burst, for all the feelings, methodically and efficiently tamped down and squashed, to reassert their right to life. Father Larrigan's assurances of "It's God's will" and "Emma's death is part of God's plan" crumbled beneath the weight of hypocrisy. Sharon, queen of denial, was quite unprepared for the abyss, so that the dam not only burst but disintegrated entirely.
She rocked back and forth with inconsolable sobs. Knowledge comes through suffering was one of Father Larrigan's favorite bromides. But in a flash of knowledge, she saw that it wasn't a bromide at all; it was yet another way for the Church to maintain control over its increasingly unruly flock. We all must suffer because of Eve's First Sin, we all deserve to suffer in this life so we may be redeemed in Heaven. What better way to keep people yoked to the Church? Surely God didn't mean these con artists to speak in His name. Oh, the insidious cleverness of it!
Now her sorrow was joined by her rage at being duped, her terror at life's random cruelty. All was chaos, uncontrollable, unknowable. With this came the stark realization that Jack was right. Her newfound religion was nothing but a sham, another way to deny her feelings, to convince herself that everything would be all right. But deep down where she was afraid to look, she knew nothing would ever be right again because Emma had been snatched from her and Jack for no good reason. And then she thought, despairingly, what possible reason could justify her daughter's death? None. None on earth or in heaven.
Gradually, she became aware of Alli holding her hand, leading her into the living room, where they sat quietly side by side on the sofa.
"Can I get you something?" Alli asked. "Some tea, a glass of water, even?"
Sharon shook her head. "Thank you, I'm feeling much better now."
But what a bitter lie that was! In her mind's eye, she could see the inside of her church, the gloomy atmosphere, the confessional, where priests heard and absolved your sins if you recited the canned blather of Hail Marys or Our Fathers. But Father Larrigan wasn't full of grace, nor was any priest. The flickering candles mocked those whose prayers they carried in their flaring hearts, the paintings of Christ, bleeding, dying while angels fluttered like so many moths over his head. And the gold! Everywhere you looked were gold crosses tinted rose or moss green by the saints in the stained-glass windows. And old-lady tears, old-lady prayers, old ladies with nowhere else to go, their lives over, clustered in the doorway, complaining about their backs and their bladders. She was not an old woman! Her life wasn't over. It wasn't too late for her to have another child, was it? Was it?
Wrenching herself away from her pain, she smiled through her tears. "Anyway, never mind me." She patted Alli's knee, and there it was again, that astonishing electric sensation that had made her weep. She managed to hold back the tears this time, but it wasn't easy. "It's you we were speaking of. You live a life of such privilege, Alli. You're admired and envied by so many young women, sought after by so many young men."
"So what?" Alli said. "I hate that privilege means the world to my parents. It means nothing to me, but they don't get it, they don't get me at all."
Sharon regarded her sadly. "I never got Emma, you know. All that anger, all that rebellion." She shook her head. "There were times when I thought she'd surely burst from keeping so much from us."
"The secrets we keep."
Sharon clasped her hands together. "I think secrets deaden us in the end. It's like having gangrene. If you keep them long enough, they begin to kill parts of you, starting with your heart."
"Your heart is still beating," Alli said.
Sharon looked away, at the photo of Emma on a horse. She could ride, that girl. "Only in a medical sense, I'm afraid."
Alli moved closer to her. "You still have Jack."
"Seeing you here . . ." Sharon bit her lip. "Oh, I want my daughter back!"
Alli took her hand again. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
Sharon looked into Alli's eyes. How young she looks, she thought. How vulnerable, how angelic. She felt all of a sudden a great, an overwhelming desire for solace, for a peace inside her churning self. She wondered whether she possessed the strength to find it. The Church couldn't provide it, nor all the prayers spoken by all the faithful in the universe. In the end, there was only what she could summon up from inside herself.
"Yes, please," she said. "Tell me about Emma."
SHARON CONFOUNDED Jack utterly when he returned to the house.
"I have an idea," she said brightly, "why don't you and Alli spend the night here? Alli can have the spare bedroom, and this sofa is very comfortable. I can't tell you how many nights I've fallen asleep on it."
Jack, mindful of the Secret Service detail he'd left behind, his brain turning over the problem of how once and for all to track down Ronnie Kray, heedlessly said, "I don't think that would be a good idea."
Sharon's face fell. "But why not?"
Seeing her stricken face gave him pause. He saw her on the sofa next to Alli, both women, torsos twisted, turned toward him. It was their proximity to each other, as if they were intimates, as if they had been talking of intimate things when he walked in. There was something about Sharon's face, an expression he felt certain he'd never see again.
"It would be so nice," Sharon said, "all of us together."
Jack, his mind changing gears, thought she might be right. "Why don't we all go to my house? It's larger and—"
Seeing the change come over Sharon's face, he stopped in midsentence.
"Jack, come on. You know that house gives me the creeps."
What was the use? he thought. No matter what he said, she'd never agree to go there, let alone spend the night.
"Alli and I have to go," he said.
Sharon stood up. "Why, Jack? I know you're not comfortable here, but just this once, stay here with me."
Jack shook his head. "It's impossible, Shar. Alli's Secret Service detail is expecting her to be at the house."
"You mean you deliberately ditched them to bring her here?" The sabers were rattling again, the warhorse stamping its huge hooves.
"It was necessary," Jack said.
"As far as you're concerned, it's always necessary to break the rules."
"Not always." How easy it was to fall back into the old patterns. "Sometimes I bend them."
"Stop, please!" Alli cried.
They both turned in her direction.
"This isn't anything to fight about," she said. "You're just fighting for the sake of fighting."
"Alli's right," Sharon said. "Half the time I don't even remember what we're fighting about."
"Then come with us," Jack said. "Spend the night."
"I'd like to," Sharon said. "Really I would." She shook her head. "But I'm not ready, Jack. Can you understand that?"
"Sure," he said, though he didn't, not really. If it wasn't for the Secret Service detail, he would have consented to stay here tonight. What was it about Gus's house she despised so? He couldn't work it out. He'd asked her so many times without getting a satisfactory answer, he had no desire to go over that old turf again. Besides, like her, he was sick to death of fighting.
"I guess it's time for you to go, then." Sharon embraced Alli, and they kissed. She stood in the lighted doorway, watching them as they went down the walk to Jack's car, and she shivered, as if with a premonition, or a feeling of deja vu, as if she'd experienced this helpless moment of sadness and loss before.
FORTY - THREE
THERE WAS, no question, a certain gloom about Jack's house, a fustiness manifested by huge odd-shaped rooms, old gas lamps gutted and wired for electricity, massive furniture, not a stick of it built after 1950. Perhaps it was all this Sharon objected to, why she had opted for predictable square rooms, low ceilings, modern furniture—a house gaily lighted but without charm.
But there was also history here—chaotic, warty, fascinating. It was, as Alli had recognized, the residence of an Outsider, past and present. Could that be why Emma liked it here and Sharon didn't? Jack asked himself as he climbed up the stairs with Alli. Sharon wasn't an Outsider—that kind of life, often in conflict with rules, regulations, even, sometimes, the law, both baffled and frightened her. She was comfortable only within the well-defined bounds of society. That was why she'd been so hell-bent on Emma going to Langley Fields, which was so Establishment. And it was why Emma had gotten into continuous difficulty there. A round peg in a square hole. Outsiders never fit in; you could never change them. But until the day Emma died Sharon hadn't given up hope.
Jack showed Alli into the guest room, which was next to his. In all these years, he'd never been able to sleep in Gus's bedroom. Years ago, he'd hauled the bed Gus had been murdered in out back and burned it. More recently, he'd turned the bedroom into a media room with an enormous flat-screen TV on which he watched James Brown concerts as well as baseball and films he bought on DVD. He felt certain Gus would've liked that.
"The bathroom's fully stocked," he said. "But if there's anything else you need, it'll be in this closet here."
After they said good night, he watched her go into her room, close the door behind her. He thought about what might be going on in her head, all the things she had told him, all the things she hadn't. In his room, he called Carson, told him all was well and that he was slowly making progress.
Jack turned off the light, lay on the bed with his clothes on. He felt bone-weary, sad unto death. The experience of learning about Emma's secret life was a two-edged sword. Gratitude and remorse flooded him in equal measure. Tonight he felt an outsider even from himself.
He must have fallen asleep because suddenly he opened his eyes and knew time had passed. It was the middle of the night. Traffic sounds were as scarce as clouds in the horse latitudes. He felt that he lay on the bosom of the ocean, rocked gently by wave after wave. He was aware of an abyss beneath him, vast, lightless. Light filtering in through the window seemed like the cool pinpoints of ten million stars. He was as far from civilization as he had ever been. Unmoored, he had said. And Alli had said, I'm unmoored, too.
It was then that he heard a sound, like the wind sighing through branches, like moonlight singing in the trees. Rain pattered on the roof, and a voice whispered, "There's someone in the house."
Sitting up, Jack saw a slim figure silhouetted in the open doorway.
"Alli, what is it? What did you hear?"
"There's someone in the house," she whispered.
He rose, took his Glock and went toward her. She turned, retreated into the hall, as if to show the way. Shadows lay against the wall like wounded soldiers. The silence was palpable, even the house's normal creaks and groans were for the moment stilled.
"Alli, where are you going?" he whispered at the receding figure. "I want you to go back to your room, lock the door till I come for you."
But either she was too far away or chose to ignore his warning, because she went down the stairs. Cursing under his breath, he hurried after her. A strange form of peacefulness came over him as he followed the slip of a shadow down the hallway, through the dining room and kitchen. Off the kitchen was a pantry that Gus had used for a storeroom and a half bath situated between the kitchen and the mudroom.
The mudroom was a space that was never used, either by Gus or by Jack. It seemed the oldest part of the house mostly because of its chronic disuse. It hadn't been painted for years. There were cobwebs in the corners with the desiccated corpses of unidentifiable insects who'd met their end in their sticky strands. An old chair rail hung half off the wall, and an old-fashioned wooden hat rack leaned drowsily in one corner. The floor was constructed of ancient slate tiles, eighteen inches on a side. Many were cracked, some fractured entirely. One or two were missing.
As Jack crossed the kitchen, he could see Alli unlock the back door, disappear outside. Jack followed her. At once, he was engulfed by the odors of rotting wood, roots, and the mineral tang of damp stone. He pushed through into a deeper darkness as he moved into a patch of the forested area behind the house.
"We'll get to the details in a moment," Paull said. "Now, suffice it to say that you're Edward Carson's man. As you might imagine, the president-elect is seen as something of a threat to certain individuals in the Administration. There's an initiative to get certain matters the president deems pressing sewn up before the twentieth."
"Like rounding up the First American Secular Revivalists."
Paull nodded. "Among other suspect groups."
"The FASR's only crime is that their philosophy is in direct opposition with the current Administration's," Jack said.
"As you no doubt understand, Jack, this Administration has serious perception issues. The world—and the players in it—are what it says they are, no matter the reality."
"Don't you understand that the FASR is being made a scapegoat?" Jack said. "You guys can't find E-Two, so you're going after the easy target."
"Please don't confuse this Administration with the truth, Jack." The secretary shifted in his seat. "Now, I think you may have an answer for me. You know a man named Ian Brady."
It wasn't a question, and Jack's eyes sought out Nina's again. "Yes, sir. Twenty-five years ago, he was a major drug supplier in my old neighborhood."
"Which was?"
"Not far from McMillan Reservoir."
Secretary Paull passed a hand across his brow. It was clear Jack had delivered his answer; trouble was, it was the answer Paull had been afraid of because it confirmed his dark analysis of who Ian Brady really was.
"You need to forget McMillan Reservoir, Jack."
"That's a bit hard to do, sir. This man, Ian Brady or Charles Whitman or Ronnie Kray, whatever he's calling himself today, is the one who abducted Alli Carson and murdered her Secret Service detail in cold blood."
"Nevertheless, you must forget him."
Jack would have said, What the hell are you talking about, sir? except he knew exactly what Paull was saying. The last piece of the puzzle he'd been assembling in his head—the most crucial one—had just fallen into place. No wonder the IDs of the vics at McMillan Reservoir were never revealed. It was the same reason that the crash of the Dark Car and the deaths of the two agents in it never made the news.
Jack's mind replayed the moment at McMillan Reservoir when he'd followed Gus and Detective Stanz, when Gus's snitch said, "I guarantee you'll never get the name of the murderer, either from me or anyone else."
"Brady's protected," Jack said to Paull. "You're protecting a serial murderer, a kidnapper."
"Not me, Jack. The government. That's why the order to my Dark Car agents was countermanded at the highest level. There was concern that you were getting too close to Brady."
"A legitimate concern."
The secretary's face looked like you could pass a steamroller over it without making a dent. "This is a matter of national security."
"How many illegal acts have been committed in the last eight years in the name of national security?"
"Jack, please. This is a friendly memo—the most friendly."
"I understand, sir. But I have to do this."
Paull breathed out a long sigh. "Look, I'm trying to protect you, you do understand that?"
"Yes, sir, I do, but that won't change my mind."
Paull looked away. He hadn't for a moment thought he'd change Jack McClure's mind, but he had to be absolutely certain of this man.
"From this moment on, you're on your own." Paull said this very softly, very distinctly.
"I'm prepared for the risk." Jack knew nothing would be settled inside himself until he hunted down Ian Brady and either brought him in or shot him dead.
FORTY - TWO
HOW I wish you and Jack were my parents!"
"Good Lord!" Sharon was standing in the kitchen. So astonished was she by Alli's statement that she dropped the egg she was transferring from its carton to the heated pan. The yellow yolk burst like a water balloon, slowly threading across the stove top, through the clear, glutinous albumin.
She'd gone with her first instinct, which was to make Alli something to eat, so they had repaired to the kitchen, a room that always made her feel secure. If she was being honest with herself, Alli's presence here unnerved her, though her nervousness had nothing to do with the fact that Alli was the president-elect's daughter. It was all down to the fact that Alli had been Emma's best friend. They were the same age, and though one would hardly be taken for the other, it was difficult for Sharon to look at Alli without seeing her own daughter. She was beset by a profound ache she thought she had put aside. The poisonous stone of Emma's death was still inside her.
Mindlessly, she turned off the burner, began to sponge up the mess. "Why on earth would you say such an extraordinary thing?"
"Because it's true."
Sharon wrung the remains of the raw egg into the sink. She held the broken shell in her cupped palm. "But I'm sure your parents are wonderful people."
"Excuse me, but all you know about my mom and dad is what you see on TV or read in magazine articles," Alli said.
She stood with her back against the pass-through into the living room. She appeared to Sharon to be poised beyond her years—certainly more poised than Emma had ever been. What I wouldn't have given for a child like this, a voice inside her wailed. And immediately she put a hand to her mouth, appalled at the thought. God forgive me, she moaned silently. But her quick prayer of penance made her feel no better, just dirty. She panicked for a moment; if prayers no longer worked for her, what would? The truth of it is that prayers are only words, she thought, and of what comfort are words at a time like this? Hollow things like the shell of an egg with the inside drained away.
"You're right, of course," she said, desperately trying to soothe her way back into normalcy. "Please forgive me."
"There's nothing to forgive, Mrs.—Sharon."
Alli came and took the glistening shell out of Sharon's hand. In that moment, their hands touched and Sharon began to weep. It took only an instant for the dam to burst, for all the feelings, methodically and efficiently tamped down and squashed, to reassert their right to life. Father Larrigan's assurances of "It's God's will" and "Emma's death is part of God's plan" crumbled beneath the weight of hypocrisy. Sharon, queen of denial, was quite unprepared for the abyss, so that the dam not only burst but disintegrated entirely.
She rocked back and forth with inconsolable sobs. Knowledge comes through suffering was one of Father Larrigan's favorite bromides. But in a flash of knowledge, she saw that it wasn't a bromide at all; it was yet another way for the Church to maintain control over its increasingly unruly flock. We all must suffer because of Eve's First Sin, we all deserve to suffer in this life so we may be redeemed in Heaven. What better way to keep people yoked to the Church? Surely God didn't mean these con artists to speak in His name. Oh, the insidious cleverness of it!
Now her sorrow was joined by her rage at being duped, her terror at life's random cruelty. All was chaos, uncontrollable, unknowable. With this came the stark realization that Jack was right. Her newfound religion was nothing but a sham, another way to deny her feelings, to convince herself that everything would be all right. But deep down where she was afraid to look, she knew nothing would ever be right again because Emma had been snatched from her and Jack for no good reason. And then she thought, despairingly, what possible reason could justify her daughter's death? None. None on earth or in heaven.
Gradually, she became aware of Alli holding her hand, leading her into the living room, where they sat quietly side by side on the sofa.
"Can I get you something?" Alli asked. "Some tea, a glass of water, even?"
Sharon shook her head. "Thank you, I'm feeling much better now."
But what a bitter lie that was! In her mind's eye, she could see the inside of her church, the gloomy atmosphere, the confessional, where priests heard and absolved your sins if you recited the canned blather of Hail Marys or Our Fathers. But Father Larrigan wasn't full of grace, nor was any priest. The flickering candles mocked those whose prayers they carried in their flaring hearts, the paintings of Christ, bleeding, dying while angels fluttered like so many moths over his head. And the gold! Everywhere you looked were gold crosses tinted rose or moss green by the saints in the stained-glass windows. And old-lady tears, old-lady prayers, old ladies with nowhere else to go, their lives over, clustered in the doorway, complaining about their backs and their bladders. She was not an old woman! Her life wasn't over. It wasn't too late for her to have another child, was it? Was it?
Wrenching herself away from her pain, she smiled through her tears. "Anyway, never mind me." She patted Alli's knee, and there it was again, that astonishing electric sensation that had made her weep. She managed to hold back the tears this time, but it wasn't easy. "It's you we were speaking of. You live a life of such privilege, Alli. You're admired and envied by so many young women, sought after by so many young men."
"So what?" Alli said. "I hate that privilege means the world to my parents. It means nothing to me, but they don't get it, they don't get me at all."
Sharon regarded her sadly. "I never got Emma, you know. All that anger, all that rebellion." She shook her head. "There were times when I thought she'd surely burst from keeping so much from us."
"The secrets we keep."
Sharon clasped her hands together. "I think secrets deaden us in the end. It's like having gangrene. If you keep them long enough, they begin to kill parts of you, starting with your heart."
"Your heart is still beating," Alli said.
Sharon looked away, at the photo of Emma on a horse. She could ride, that girl. "Only in a medical sense, I'm afraid."
Alli moved closer to her. "You still have Jack."
"Seeing you here . . ." Sharon bit her lip. "Oh, I want my daughter back!"
Alli took her hand again. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
Sharon looked into Alli's eyes. How young she looks, she thought. How vulnerable, how angelic. She felt all of a sudden a great, an overwhelming desire for solace, for a peace inside her churning self. She wondered whether she possessed the strength to find it. The Church couldn't provide it, nor all the prayers spoken by all the faithful in the universe. In the end, there was only what she could summon up from inside herself.
"Yes, please," she said. "Tell me about Emma."
SHARON CONFOUNDED Jack utterly when he returned to the house.
"I have an idea," she said brightly, "why don't you and Alli spend the night here? Alli can have the spare bedroom, and this sofa is very comfortable. I can't tell you how many nights I've fallen asleep on it."
Jack, mindful of the Secret Service detail he'd left behind, his brain turning over the problem of how once and for all to track down Ronnie Kray, heedlessly said, "I don't think that would be a good idea."
Sharon's face fell. "But why not?"
Seeing her stricken face gave him pause. He saw her on the sofa next to Alli, both women, torsos twisted, turned toward him. It was their proximity to each other, as if they were intimates, as if they had been talking of intimate things when he walked in. There was something about Sharon's face, an expression he felt certain he'd never see again.
"It would be so nice," Sharon said, "all of us together."
Jack, his mind changing gears, thought she might be right. "Why don't we all go to my house? It's larger and—"
Seeing the change come over Sharon's face, he stopped in midsentence.
"Jack, come on. You know that house gives me the creeps."
What was the use? he thought. No matter what he said, she'd never agree to go there, let alone spend the night.
"Alli and I have to go," he said.
Sharon stood up. "Why, Jack? I know you're not comfortable here, but just this once, stay here with me."
Jack shook his head. "It's impossible, Shar. Alli's Secret Service detail is expecting her to be at the house."
"You mean you deliberately ditched them to bring her here?" The sabers were rattling again, the warhorse stamping its huge hooves.
"It was necessary," Jack said.
"As far as you're concerned, it's always necessary to break the rules."
"Not always." How easy it was to fall back into the old patterns. "Sometimes I bend them."
"Stop, please!" Alli cried.
They both turned in her direction.
"This isn't anything to fight about," she said. "You're just fighting for the sake of fighting."
"Alli's right," Sharon said. "Half the time I don't even remember what we're fighting about."
"Then come with us," Jack said. "Spend the night."
"I'd like to," Sharon said. "Really I would." She shook her head. "But I'm not ready, Jack. Can you understand that?"
"Sure," he said, though he didn't, not really. If it wasn't for the Secret Service detail, he would have consented to stay here tonight. What was it about Gus's house she despised so? He couldn't work it out. He'd asked her so many times without getting a satisfactory answer, he had no desire to go over that old turf again. Besides, like her, he was sick to death of fighting.
"I guess it's time for you to go, then." Sharon embraced Alli, and they kissed. She stood in the lighted doorway, watching them as they went down the walk to Jack's car, and she shivered, as if with a premonition, or a feeling of deja vu, as if she'd experienced this helpless moment of sadness and loss before.
FORTY - THREE
THERE WAS, no question, a certain gloom about Jack's house, a fustiness manifested by huge odd-shaped rooms, old gas lamps gutted and wired for electricity, massive furniture, not a stick of it built after 1950. Perhaps it was all this Sharon objected to, why she had opted for predictable square rooms, low ceilings, modern furniture—a house gaily lighted but without charm.
But there was also history here—chaotic, warty, fascinating. It was, as Alli had recognized, the residence of an Outsider, past and present. Could that be why Emma liked it here and Sharon didn't? Jack asked himself as he climbed up the stairs with Alli. Sharon wasn't an Outsider—that kind of life, often in conflict with rules, regulations, even, sometimes, the law, both baffled and frightened her. She was comfortable only within the well-defined bounds of society. That was why she'd been so hell-bent on Emma going to Langley Fields, which was so Establishment. And it was why Emma had gotten into continuous difficulty there. A round peg in a square hole. Outsiders never fit in; you could never change them. But until the day Emma died Sharon hadn't given up hope.
Jack showed Alli into the guest room, which was next to his. In all these years, he'd never been able to sleep in Gus's bedroom. Years ago, he'd hauled the bed Gus had been murdered in out back and burned it. More recently, he'd turned the bedroom into a media room with an enormous flat-screen TV on which he watched James Brown concerts as well as baseball and films he bought on DVD. He felt certain Gus would've liked that.
"The bathroom's fully stocked," he said. "But if there's anything else you need, it'll be in this closet here."
After they said good night, he watched her go into her room, close the door behind her. He thought about what might be going on in her head, all the things she had told him, all the things she hadn't. In his room, he called Carson, told him all was well and that he was slowly making progress.
Jack turned off the light, lay on the bed with his clothes on. He felt bone-weary, sad unto death. The experience of learning about Emma's secret life was a two-edged sword. Gratitude and remorse flooded him in equal measure. Tonight he felt an outsider even from himself.
He must have fallen asleep because suddenly he opened his eyes and knew time had passed. It was the middle of the night. Traffic sounds were as scarce as clouds in the horse latitudes. He felt that he lay on the bosom of the ocean, rocked gently by wave after wave. He was aware of an abyss beneath him, vast, lightless. Light filtering in through the window seemed like the cool pinpoints of ten million stars. He was as far from civilization as he had ever been. Unmoored, he had said. And Alli had said, I'm unmoored, too.
It was then that he heard a sound, like the wind sighing through branches, like moonlight singing in the trees. Rain pattered on the roof, and a voice whispered, "There's someone in the house."
Sitting up, Jack saw a slim figure silhouetted in the open doorway.
"Alli, what is it? What did you hear?"
"There's someone in the house," she whispered.
He rose, took his Glock and went toward her. She turned, retreated into the hall, as if to show the way. Shadows lay against the wall like wounded soldiers. The silence was palpable, even the house's normal creaks and groans were for the moment stilled.
"Alli, where are you going?" he whispered at the receding figure. "I want you to go back to your room, lock the door till I come for you."
But either she was too far away or chose to ignore his warning, because she went down the stairs. Cursing under his breath, he hurried after her. A strange form of peacefulness came over him as he followed the slip of a shadow down the hallway, through the dining room and kitchen. Off the kitchen was a pantry that Gus had used for a storeroom and a half bath situated between the kitchen and the mudroom.
The mudroom was a space that was never used, either by Gus or by Jack. It seemed the oldest part of the house mostly because of its chronic disuse. It hadn't been painted for years. There were cobwebs in the corners with the desiccated corpses of unidentifiable insects who'd met their end in their sticky strands. An old chair rail hung half off the wall, and an old-fashioned wooden hat rack leaned drowsily in one corner. The floor was constructed of ancient slate tiles, eighteen inches on a side. Many were cracked, some fractured entirely. One or two were missing.
As Jack crossed the kitchen, he could see Alli unlock the back door, disappear outside. Jack followed her. At once, he was engulfed by the odors of rotting wood, roots, and the mineral tang of damp stone. He pushed through into a deeper darkness as he moved into a patch of the forested area behind the house.
