Critical Reaction (18 page)

“What is it?”

Poppy looked over his shoulder at Kieran just as the boy’s eyes widened with recognition.

“I’ve got a Geiger counter in my truck,” Poppy said. Without
waiting for a response, Poppy jogged once more to retrieve the Eberline 530 counter from the tool compartment in the bed of his truck. It was an old model, a gift from his father when he’d retired in the early eighties. But Poppy’d kept it in good shape and always charged.

When Poppy returned, Kieran had been joined by two women: a younger one, maybe sixteen, and a woman nearer Kieran’s age. Kieran had them both back up several yards. Not waiting for introductions, Poppy stepped in front with the gray box in one hand and the wand in the other, extending the wand in the direction of the carcasses.

The static was unbroken as he waved it back and forth, carefully moving closer and closer to the red medallion and the birds. At last he stood directly over them. The static still didn’t waiver, humming with the low, steady clatter marking an absence of radiation. Poppy felt his shoulders relax.

“What’s going on?” the older girl said—then the younger one shouted in alarm, “What happened to your face!”

Before Kieran could answer, Poppy held up a hand. “I’ve gotta go,” he said.

The young man nodded. “Thanks again.”

Why was all this happening, Poppy wondered as he walked slowly back to the truck. Especially now—so long after the explosion. Was it the article about the new Covington report in the
Courier
? Could it be because the case was in litigation?

But then in the wake of that article, why’d the kid get a call to attend a game where everybody there wanted to take his head off?

Poppy started the truck and turned left, passing Kieran and the two women talking at the side of the house. Then he took another left at the corner where the van had turned to leave, circling back to head west toward home.

It was sitting around the curve, just far enough up the block to be invisible to the house. For an instant he thought about
stopping—or maybe turning around and telling Kieran. Instead, Poppy pressed the pedal to pass by as quickly as he could.

It was the white van, its occupants hidden behind the reflections off its darkened windows. And the reappearance of the van wasn’t the only thing that startled Poppy.

As he raced past, he saw that the van had no license plates.

It was past midnight when Emily pulled her Hyundai into the Riverside ball-field parking lot with Kieran seated next to her. The dark shape of Kieran’s lonely Corolla was visible across the lot, moonlight glinting off the back window.

The evening had been an emotional roller coaster. She’d been shocked at the vision of the dead crows and dosimetry badge at the side of the house, then seeing Kieran’s battered face from the game. At her insistence, they’d taken pictures of the scene before cleaning it up—then all had agreed to tell Kieran’s mother that he’d had an accident at the game. Amanda was already struggling with her own health issues; she didn’t need this worry about her son. Kieran had also overridden Emily’s protests and insisted they not call the police: that would have made it impossible to keep it secret from his mother.

But then, miraculously, the evening had morphed into something . . . better. Maybe it was the enforced silence about the traumatic events or the great desire she and Kieran clearly shared to escape it all for a while. But as time passed through the birthday dinner and opening gifts, there came a point where Emily realized that a whole hour had gone by in which she hadn’t thought about the case or the softball game or her disappointment in her father or even the terrible symbols buried at the side of the house. As the night rolled on, she could almost imagine that Kieran and she were back at college, entertaining his visiting mother and sister, secure again in the comfort of their shared secrets and burdens.

They approached the car in the stillness until her lights shone on the driver’s door. “Look.” Kieran pointed.

It all came crashing back in on Emily again. Visible in the headlights, a front tire was flat. Her eyes rose to the front windshield. A spider web of cracks covered its surface.

Emily was shaking as she helped Kieran get the spare and jack out of the trunk—from the cold or the renewed anger and fear, she didn’t know. He handed her a jacket out of the back of the Corolla, and she stood beside him in the chilly evening, surveying the wreckage of the already aging car as he changed the tire.

Mercifully, they’d slashed only the one tire. Twenty minutes later, Kieran finished, then stowed the flat and tools in the trunk.

“Can you see alright to drive home?” she asked as he turned to face her.

He nodded. “Well enough.” As he spoke, she could see the weariness in his battered face in the full light of the Hyundai’s car lights.

“I should’ve given you a gift for your birthday,” she said, trying to conjure something to lift him. “I . . . I got too caught up in the lawyer-client thing in my head.”

He shook his head. “Seriously, Emily, don’t worry. I was just glad you came. It felt like old times.”

Emily nodded her agreement, smiling to hide the ache at seeing him so discouraged again. Then, without thinking, she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

She pulled slowly away, and for an instant thought he might follow. But he didn’t. Just fashioned a smile with his lip as big as a thumb and both eyes darkly rimmed. Emily nearly laughed.

She drove back to the Annex replaying the end of the evening in her mind. It was confusing and heady. That was because of the crows, she told herself. And the damaged car.

Except that was a lie. The celebration this evening had taken her back to before her mother died. Back when Emily still clung to hope she would recover and things could be as they had been.
Back when a part of her still secretly idolized her father, before that had faded and their stunted relationship had crystallized into something more distant and edged. Before Emily had defeated loneliness by plowing long hours into law school and career. Defeated it, or kept it at bay.

Her headlights closed in on the Winchester Bed and Breakfast and her father’s car parked out front of the Annex. Emily pulled to the curb, turned off her car, and sat quietly in the dark.

She had to keep a handle on what she was starting to feel about Kieran, Emily told herself. He was a client now. This was her first private case; all she needed was for something to start and to get caught in an ethics violation. Then there was the promise to her father.

She got out of the car into the evening stillness. Who was she kidding, she thought, walking up the sidewalk to the Annex. She didn’t care about the ethics of it. And she didn’t care what her father would think. He hadn’t had a voice in her life for a long time now.

For an instant, she recalled standing beside him at her mother’s funeral. They’d been shoulder to shoulder, yet his presence hadn’t shielded her from the pain. The image was so vivid that for a brief moment her chest ached.

It faded away and she returned to the present: standing on the Annex stoop in the tranquility of the desert night, wondering what had unearthed the memory.

Then she knew. As she opened the Annex door, she realized that the past few weeks working with Kieran were the first time she’d lived without an undercurrent of loss since the day her mother had died.

CHAPTER 18

F
ORTY
-T
HREE
D
AYS
U
NTIL
T
RIAL

The plane was descending into SeaTac International with Dr. Minh Trân gripping hard to the arms of his seat in the main cabin. There was another shock of turbulence, dropping the plane and lifting him weightless from his seat for agonizing seconds. Please, he prayed, get this plane to the ground. Soon.

He hated flying. He had ever since his first flight. That day, the helicopter had lurched and bounded as it skimmed treetops, his mother gripping him to her chest so tightly that he labored to breathe, while tracers weaved a pattern in the dusky sky and spent rounds pinged off the thin metal skin of the craft. He was four years old, escaping from his native home on one of the last helicopters out of Danang in 1975. The images and memories remained crystal fresh after all this time, though some he’d only understood years later. But one legacy of that flight required no interpretation—Minh had hated flying and would do so until the day he died.

The American Airlines Boeing 787 from Dallas mercifully thudded to a hard landing at SeaTac International Airport. Thankful to be down, Minh shouldered his carry-on and exited the plane toward the middle of the shuffling crowd of passengers moving from the aircraft and up the gangway.

He stepped into the concourse and immediately glanced at
the wall clock: 1:45 p.m. Good. There was a flight display a short walk away. He went there and scanned the digital array. There it was: flight 1209 from Philadelphia. On time; arriving at gate S1. Then he checked the connecting flights to Sherman Airport. Gate C5.

Dr. Trân resettled his shoulder bag and took the train to the S concourse. From there, he walked to gate S1 and found a chair in a food court nearby to await the arrival of the Philadelphia flight. He had plenty of time—over an hour—but he never left issues of timing to chance. He laid his bag on the ground, checked his watch one more time, and settled in to wait.

As he got off the plane from Philadelphia, Ryan wished he had time to head up to Seattle and check in with Melissa. Though they’d stayed in touch every few days by phone, and the office was largely dead anyway, he ought to at least glance at the mail. But there’d be no time for that today, with his connection to Sherman in less than an hour.

As he made his way to the trains to the C concourse, Ryan couldn’t shake the countdown in his head: now five weeks until their expert reports were due. And with Dr. Nadine softening on his support for Kieran’s case, he had to at least try to find somebody with more zeal as a potential replacement for the Princeton professor.

The fact was that the day was approaching when a good attorney—an objective attorney—would have “the talk” with Kieran, discussing the prospect of a humbling approach to Eric King to see if they could get a settlement back on the table—one that hopefully included Covington’s agreement not to pursue Kieran as the perpetrator of the explosion.

Kieran might not want a settlement in
any
form, but it was better than a simple dismissal of his claims and possible criminal charges down the road.

This was why lawyers shouldn’t represent friends, Ryan thought as he quickened his pace down the concourse. Because sometimes good attorneys had to stand back and punch their own clients in the nose with the bad news about what was best for them.

Ryan was bumped hard, throwing him off his stride.

“Oh, please forgive me. I’m very sorry.”

“That’s all right,” Ryan said, turning. Behind him stood a man a head smaller than himself, wearing jeans and a windbreaker. Prescription glasses were slung up to the line of his short-cropped hair. He was Asian—Vietnamese, he guessed.

“I’m just hurrying to my connection,” the man said. “I’m worried I’ll be late. And I confess, I’m a little nervous. I hate flying puddle jumpers.”

“Me too,” Ryan agreed.

“Where are you headed?” the man asked, matching Ryan’s pace.

“Sherman.”

The man shook his head. “Well, if we go down, at least I’ll know someone on the flight.”

“You’re on the flight to Sherman?”

The man nodded without missing a stride. “Yes. Actually, I have a consulting job in Spokane. I just need to pick up a few things in Sherman before driving there.”

“What kind of consulting do you do?” Ryan asked distractedly.

“Nuclear physics. Actually, my specialty is nuclear chemistry, but this particular job is a little more generic.”