Damage Control (22 page)
T
HE MAN SHOVED
her against the refrigerator. Pain shot through her. He tightened his grip around her throat. With his other hand, he forced the barrel of the gun against her forehead. “The earring, and I just might let you live.”
Rain battered the cathedral windows.
Dana grunted at the man through clenched teeth, “I told you, Logan has it.”
He jammed the side of her face against the refrigerator and pushed the gun in her cheek. She felt it pressing against her molars. “Then there’s no reason to let you live.”
He pulled back the hammer on the gun and leaned forward.
She resisted, stalling. He reached behind him, placed the gun on the counter, and picked up the tin shears. Then he grabbed her hand, tugging at her index finger, forcing it open, and pinched it between the blades at the first knuckle. Her skin tore, blood trickling down the back of her hand. She could feel the blade against the bone.
“No,” she screamed, fear overcoming her judgment. “I hid it.”
L
OGAN JUMPED FROM
the car, slipping in the mud as he ran to the cab of the fire truck. He leaped onto the running board, holding up his badge, and shouted at the driver over the rush of wind and rain, “Go forward! Go forward!”
The driver shook his head, yelling back at him. “Can’t do it. It won’t make it around that last turn. We’ve been trying for ten minutes. We need a smaller vehicle, but if this storm doesn’t pass, nothing is going to get up here. Road will be too wet. I’ve never seen a cloud like that on this mountain.”
Logan had, just once before, and the storm it brought had been monumental. He slapped the side of the fire engine in frustration. The narrow road did not allow the Austin Healey enough room to pass, and to back down the road and wait for the fire engine’s slow descent would take too much time. Sheets of water poured down on him. He looked up at the steep hillside into which the road had been cut. He estimated it was fifteen to twenty-five feet of dense, steep terrain to the top. In this weather, it would be like climbing a slide in his socks. Lightning crackled overhead. Whether it brought the idea or not, Logan was struck by a thought.
“How high can you get those ladders on the back of the truck?” he asked.
T
HE EARRING, MS. HILL
, or I’ll take them off one knuckle at a time.”
Blood dripped down her wrist. “All right. All right.”
“Where is it?”
She looked down at her blouse, torn at the buttons. The man released her finger and dropped the snips. When he reached for her breast she covered her chest with her hands and burst at him in anger and rage, “Don’t you touch me! Don’t you even think about touching me!”
His body pressed hard against hers. “Oh, I’ve thought about it.” His breath had a bitter, acrid smell. “I’ve thought about it a lot. I like the fight. I like the struggle.” He licked at her cheek. Then he pulled back. “Get it.”
Dana seethed and reached into her bra. AC/DC continued to shout at them. “Here.” She depressed the button on the cylindrical tube, sending a stream of Mace into the man’s eyes. He fell backward, growling, pawing at his face. Dana shoved him into the counter. She turned and started across the suspended bridge, using the railings on either side like crutches, each step bringing agony. It was all she could do to put one foot in front of the other. When she reached the opposite side she collapsed, her back against the wall, facing the bridge. The storm had pulled a black curtain across the cathedral windows, but in the darkness, she saw the man pulling himself to his feet, wiping at his eyes. Then he stumbled forward, hands in front of him, feeling his way blindly to the bridge.
“Come on,” Dana said to herself. “Come on, you son of a bitch.”
L
OGAN STOOD ON
the third rung from the top of the ladder as it rose. The ladder operator hugged the hill as close as he could, but because it sloped away, the top of the ladder was four to six feet from the ridge. Logan gestured to move the ladder closer. The man signaled back that it was as close as he could get it. Logan looked down. Lower portions of the ladder were already embedded in the dirt and rock. This was as high as the elevator would take him.
He took a breath, gripped the top rung with both hands, and cautiously stepped up, balancing like a swimmer on a platform, then leaped for the ridge. He landed just short of the top, gripped the roots of a bush with his hands to keep from plunging down the side, and kicked at the hillside in search of a toehold. It sent a small avalanche clattering on top of the fire engine. He pulled himself to the top, stumbled from his knees to his feet, and sprinted across the field toward the grove of trees surrounding his house. Though he was in good shape and worked out regularly, he could not control his breathing. He labored to catch his breath, adrenaline pushing him to an unbalanced speed. He swiped at branches, ducking and weaving between the trees, picking his footing where he could. He emerged from the grove twenty yards from the front of the house. The interior was dark. He saw no lights. Around him, the storm continued to overpower other sounds—the chimes in the trees were spinning and twirling mutely.
He shielded his eyes from the rain and saw a shadow inside the darkened panes of glass: someone standing on one of the suspended bridges.
T
HE MAN STEPPED
onto the bridge, gripping the railing, continuing to wipe his eyes.
“Come on,” Dana whispered. She fought through the waves of nausea brought on by the pain. “Come on.”
The man took several uncertain steps. Then he stopped. He looked back in the direction he’d come, and for a fleeting moment, Dana thought he would turn back. But then he stepped forward again. Halfway across, he stopped again and brought a hand to his temple, as if struck by a thought or a sudden intense headache. He turned to the right, craning to see over the edge of the railing. The image was as clear to her as the one she had seen while standing in Logan’s kitchen, and as vivid as when she’d first seen the unfinished sculpture on William Welles’s counter.
The man now gripped the railing with both hands, as if fighting vertigo that made his legs unsteady. He whipped his head from side to side in confusion, but his feet remained riveted in place, unable or unwilling to move. He looked across the bridge to where Dana sat. In the darkness, she saw the reflection in his eyes—no longer as dark as mining shafts. They had burst to life, reflecting the flickering red and orange of an unseen fire. He aimed the gun. Dana summoned what strength remained and pressed down on the raised end of the levered crowbar she had wedged between the clasp and the metal pole holding the bridge aloft.
The man teetered as if the bridge had swayed beneath his feet. The gun tumbled over the side. Lightning crackled, sending an electric blue pulse throughout the room. Thunder clattered and boomed.
The crowbar teetered on the block of wood stubbornly. Dana felt the strength in her arms waning. The man lurched forward, nearing the edge. She applied all her weight, her arms shaking. The crowbar gave way, the latch snapping like a tree limb, and the metal claws opened, releasing their grip.
“Go to hell,” she said.
L
OGAN FLUNG OPEN
the front door, shouting her name, his voice suffocated by the din of the music and the rattle and pounding of the storm. He climbed the spiral staircase two steps at a time, saw blood on the kitchen floor, and stepped to the edge where the footbridge had once been but where there was now a twenty foot crevasse. On the other side, Dana sat slumped against the wall, unresponsive. He rushed around the house in the opposite direction, circumnavigating the bridges, feeling them bounce beneath his weight. He shut off the stereo, then knelt beside her. “Dana, are you okay? Can you hear me?”
Her eyes were blank and her skin cold to the touch. Fearing she was slipping into shock, he hurried to his room and pulled a quilt off the bed. Wrapping her in it, he carried her down the stairs. He laid her on the couch in the living room and started a fire in the fireplace. Then he hurried back to the kitchen and made a cup of tea, warming the water in the microwave as his mind continued to relive that moment when he had burst through the front door and saw the bridge give way. The man had fallen as if a trapdoor had opened beneath him, plunging feet first and landing on the glass table in an explosion of lightning, thunder, and shattering glass. Still alive, he had managed to lift himself to his knees, bloodied, and looked up as if in one final plea for mercy. The suspended bridge hanging above him swung precariously by one end. Then Logan watched its weight pull it from its remaining bracket and it fell like a slab of lead from the heavens, striking the man with an immense and hideous force.
The bell of the microwave pushed the vision from Logan’s head. He removed the mug and added the bag of tea to the hot water as he made his way back down the stairs. He sat beside her on the couch and lifted the cup to her lips. She sipped it gently. Then she leaned sideways, bracing her head against his shoulder, and they sat in silence listening to the storm.
A
POLICE CAR
and Carole Nuchitelli’s Land Rover were parked in the circular drive in front of Logan’s house. The afternoon storm had passed, the dark clouds giving way to a persistent high gray and patches of blue. Logan stood at the front door, hearing birds and the chimes in the trees. The standoff at the Bartell drugstore had also kept away the reporters, and for that he was grateful. He was finishing his conversation with Nuchitelli and another detective from the North Precinct, James Fick, a former lineman at the University of Oregon who still maintained much of his playing-day build.
Logan said to Fick, “What went out over the radio? What does the press know?”
“Nothing, at the moment,” Fick answered. “Everybody’s dealing with the aftermath at Bartell’s. They’ve had live coverage for three hours now. Any reporters not at the scene are at their desks trying to dig up information on the gunman and his hostages. You’re all alone out here.”
Logan nodded. “I need you to delay everything. I don’t want anything reported in the newspapers. If any reporters call to question it, tell them there was a small fire, but the trucks never made it up because of the condition of the road. The storm extinguished the fire. Can we do that?”
Fick nodded. They had bagged the gunman’s body and placed him in the back of Nuchitelli’s Land Rover. Logan went on, “Nooch, bury the body in the reefer for a day or two until I can figure out what’s going on here. If anyone, and I mean anyone, calls about it, play dumb. I don’t know the full extent of what I’m dealing with yet.”
Nuchitelli shrugged. “No real doubt what killed him anyway, is there? Who is he?”
“Trust me. This time you really do want him to remain anonymous.” She smiled at him. “I won’t forget it,” he said.
Nuchitelli looked past him to where Dana sat on the couch, the comforter still wrapped around her. Then she and Fick left.
Logan shut the door behind them and walked back inside. He stood on the top step of the sunken living room with his hands in his pockets. Dana sat examining her bandaged hand.
“How’s the finger?”
She looked up at him. “It’s okay.”
“How about the rest of you?”
“Better.”
“Do you want some more tea?”
She shook her head. Then she looked at the photograph in the picture frame. “How long after you were married did you know?”
Logan stepped down. “About the muscular dystrophy? We knew in college. We were high school sweethearts. Sarah was diagnosed at eighteen. Some relatives on her mother’s side apparently had it. She died at thirty-six. I’m grateful for those eighteen years.”
“You knew she had the disease, but you married her anyway?”
The question came out of the blue but did not catch Logan totally off guard. He had been asked before. Even his parents had been against the wedding. They said he’d spend the best years of his life caring for an invalid. He sat in a chair across from Dana, elbows resting on his thighs. “I loved her.”
“But you knew she would be crippled. That she was going to die.”
He shrugged. “It didn’t change how I felt about her. I didn’t fall in love with her just because of how she looked, although to me she was the most beautiful woman in the world. I fell in love with her because of how she made me feel. That didn’t change when she was confined to a wheelchair. She was still beautiful. She still made me feel special.”
Dana looked up at the bridges. “You knew she couldn’t have lived here, with the lofts and staircases and everything. She had to have known that, too.”
He nodded. “I’m sure she did.”
She took the quilt off. Her blouse was ripped and torn, her jeans spotted with blood. “If I keep this up, I’m not going to have any clothes left.”
“You and Sarah are about the same size,” he said. “There are some clothes left in the closet in the bedroom.” Dana shook her head. He said, “Please. They’ve been in there for five years. Sarah was a very giving person. She would want you to get out of that blouse. A needle and thread is not going to salvage it.” He started up the stairs. “I’m afraid it will have to be jeans and baggy shirts. Sarah wasn’t much of a clotheshorse.”
Dana smiled. “I think we would have gotten along just fine, your wife and I.”
He stopped on the stairs and looked down at her. “I think you’re right.”
T
HE FLOOR-TO-CEILING
bulletproof windows in Robert Meyers’s office offered a sweeping view of the slate-gray waters of Puget Sound. The ferry from Seattle to Victoria, British Columbia, skidded past Bainbridge Island like a water bug, leaving behind a V-shaped wake amid several white triangles—sailboats flicking back and forth. In the distance, a freighter carried stacks of colorful cargo containers three stories tall south, in the direction of the port of Seattle. The Olympic Mountains, still sprinkled with winter snow, framed the horizon.
Seattle was no longer the hidden gem Meyers’s great-grandfather had discovered. Much to the expressed displeasure of natives, the rest of the country had discovered the Emerald City. Weyerhaeuser and Boeing remained significant players in the region and on the national stage. Like grandfathers at the family reunion, they continued to stand for hard work, persistence, and longevity. But it had been the Internet and Microsoft, with Bill Gates’s and Paul Allen’s billions, and the high-tech craze in general that made millionaires overnight and injected the populace with the entrepreneurial spirit that anything was possible. It had transformed Seattle like the gold rush of the 1840s had transformed California, bringing not just people in search of a quick fortune but an entire cottage industry of companies to support it. They came to the Pacific Northwest for the opportunity to get rich quick, then stayed for the affordable housing and the wholesome lifestyle that revolved around the outdoors.
The Internet, cell phones, and mobile e-mail had also made the world smaller. Where a person lived was no longer a primary factor in whether he could win a national election. A state far removed from the national political scene producing a president was no longer a pipe dream. Clinton came out of Arkansas, Jimmy Carter out of Georgia. Both were states that did not possess an avalanche of electoral votes. Robert Meyers sensed the time was ripe for a president from the Northwest. Two-term Republican president Charles Monroe would step down without much to show for his eight years in office, and the Republicans had been unable to drum up anyone to excite or even interest the American public. The powers in the Democratic Party had also been intent on marching out the same old tired names. They had implored Meyers to wait his turn, offering him positions of power and prestige in the Senate to appease him. They hinted that he was too young and too inexperienced. They said losing would tarnish him for future campaigns. Meyers, however, remained defiant. He had no intention of losing. He responded that Americans wanted an America that was once again bold and innovative, and the most recent polls, the results of which sat on his desk, suggested he was right. In the week since he had announced his candidacy, the percentage of Democrats indicating they would vote for him had jumped to 38 percent. He was confident that number would increase as his campaign reached full swing.
But he had always been confident, it was another quality his father had instilled. When he inherited the family compound, he added a steel and concrete structure connected to the house by a seventy-foot sandstone-covered colonnade that the newspapers referred to as the West Coast West Wing. It included his office, offices for seven assistants, secretarial stations, a conference room capable of seating fifty, a movie theater/media center, and a ballroom and dining room for entertaining nearly four hundred guests. Inside the complex, Meyers’s and his wife’s whereabouts were monitored from a control center in the basement that used a state-of-the-art security system to deploy a team of security personnel, most former Army Rangers or Navy SEALs. Getting accustomed to the Secret Service detail that, upon his election, would follow them the rest of their lives would not be a problem.
Casually dressed in a cashmere sweater, jeans, and penny loafers, Meyers sat at a desk hand-crafted from the timbers of a ship abandoned in arctic waters. When it was found by American whalers a century after it disappeared, attempts to raise the ship had been unsuccessful, but they had managed to salvage the wood. The desk and other ornate pieces in Meyers’s office had been crafted from it.
Meyers looked up from the speech he would give to his supporters at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel Saturday night and reconfirmed the time by the clock on the mantel. He reached for the telephone and pressed a preprogrammed button. “Has Mr. Boutaire arrived yet?”
The shift leader of his security staff advised that Peter Boutaire had not reported in, and attempts to reach him on his secure cellular phone had also been unsuccessful.
It was not like Boutaire to be out of touch. “Send someone to check his apartment. When he arrives, have him report to me immediately.”
Meyers hung up and returned his attention to the speech, but he found himself reading and rereading the opening sentence.
