From Black Rooms (25 page)

He lost the ability to speak then, but he'd said enough. Natalie scrambled to unfasten both her own seat belt and his. "Fight him, Calvin," she urged. "Don't let him in."

Never in her life had Natalie so wished for a SoulScan unit and its hated Panic Button. Ordinarily, she

wouldn't subject her worst enemy to the nerve-searing electroshock, but she feared that Calvin didn't have the experience or training to cast out an inhabiting soul on his own. Although a good jolt from Serena's stun gun would have done the job, too, Natalie hadn't brought it because she knew security would never have let her take it on the plane. She'd have to find some other way of driving the spirit out of Calvin's brain. But what?

She slung her purse over her shoulder in the unlikely event it contained anything that would help her, then grabbed Calvin's hands. Leveraging what weight she had in her thin frame, she got him onto his feet and yoked his arm around her neck. Semiconscious now, he listed heavily against her, dragging his feet as she tugged him toward the aft lavatories.

A flight attendant hastened up the aisle to intercept them, her expression of alarm made melodramatic by her excessive rouge and eye shadow. "Is something wrong?"

Natalie forced a smile. "Oh, no. Just a little airsickness."

Calvin lifted his drowsing head, and murmured what sounded like a prayer in foreign syl ables of an exotic, lyrical cadence.

Arabic.

The flight attendant's apprehension became

bewilderment, and Natalie slapped a hand over Calvin's mouth. "Hold it in, honey," she told him in a cheery but pointed tone. " 'Scuse us!"

She kept Calvin muffled as she pushed her way past the attendant and lurched on toward the rear of the plane.
Please, no, she silently begged when she saw a paunchy
businessman bouncing on the bal s of his dress shoes in front of the lavatories, indicating that they were al occupied.

One of the restrooms opened and an elderly woman

shuffled out, planting her cane as cautiously as if walking on stilts. "Sorry!" Natalie chirped to the businessman as she shoved Calvin through the door ahead of him. "It's an emergency."

She slammed the door and slid the lock shut, ignoring the businessman's angry thumping as she propped

Calvin against the lavatory's tiny basin. There, beneath the paper-towel dispenser, the wal offered a 110-volt outlet for passengers who wanted to touch up their appearance with an electric razor or curling iron before touching down at their destination. If she could get Calvin to jam some metal in there...but not for too long...

Natalie dumped the contents of her purse into the bowl of the washbasin and pawed through them. When she uncovered Calvin's mouth, he keened the music of a muezzin cal ing the faithful in Mecca. His eyes nearly white as the irises rol ed up underneath the lids, he abruptly switched to Middle Eastern-accented English.

"I failed Him," he wailed. "I failed in my martyrdom, and God did not let me into Heaven...

From the jumble of breath mints, loose change, makeup accessories, and wadded tissues that tumbled into the sink, Natalie fished out a pair of tweezers that she occasional y used to pluck her eyebrows. She bent the branches of the stainless-steel wishbone outward until the tips lined up with the slots of the outlet, then wrapped Calvin's flaccid fingers around the tweezers'

closed end, cupping her gloved hands over his right hand to hold and maneuver it.

"I failed." Calvin's limp hand clenched in her grasp.

"B
ut I will not fail again."

Natalie tugged on his hand until the tips of the tweezers quivered in front of the socket, but the crook of Calvin's left arm wrapped around her neck like a

python, constricting her breath and holding her at bay. Struggling to retain her hold on his right fist, she stamped as hard as she could on his foot. The pain was enough to make him cry out and hunch forward, giving her enough slack in his arm to drive the tweezers into the outlet.

Although the gloves insulated her hands, Natalie

fancied she could feel the current jangling her flesh like a struck tuning fork, but that may have been her own memories of the Panic Button. The lights in the lavatory barely flickered and the connection didn't spark or crackle. Even Calvin made no sound, for electrocution causes the diaphragm to contract, forbidding breath. The only indication of the agony he endured was the board-stiff posture of his body, which vibrated with strain as al of his muscles tightened at once.

How long was enough? How long was too much?

Natalie had no way of knowing. After a few seconds, she hammered her fists down on his clenched hand to loosen it from the tweezers and break the connection. Freed from the paralyzing voltage, Calvin's muscles al relaxed at once. His arm slipped away from Natalie's throat, and his body folded like a deck chair, slumping him into a heap in front of the toilet. Crouching, Natalie removed one of her gloves and palpated his neck, and only when she detected a reviving pulse did she become aware of the frantic rapping on the door.

"Ma'am? Sir?" the flight attendant shouted from outside. "Do you need help? I can unlock this--"

"No, we're fine," Natalie cal ed out, even though they weren't. "We'l be out in a minute," she added, even though they wouldn't.

Calvin rotated onto his side and drew his knees up to his chest. He either couldn't get up yet or didn't think it was worth the effort.

"Oh, God, Natalie," he croaked. "What am I gonna do?" Trapped tears fused his eyelashes together. Whether they were from pain or despair, she couldn't tel .

"You're going to get through this. We both wil ." And, since it was al she could do for him now, she put her glove back on and held his hand.

20

One for Practice

TO TRANSFER CUSTODY OF Amanda Bethany

Pyne to Tackle and Block for transport to the White Sands facility along with the lab equipment. He didn't get to Boo's condo until almost nine and immediately sensed that something had changed. Al the cars had disappeared from along the curb, including Sanjay Prashad's, and drawn shades closed the eyes of the windows.

Evan parked his rented Ford Taurus across the street and snatched his field glasses off the passenger seat, cursing Pancrit for making him his errand boy. If Evan had been watching Boo last night instead of sweettalking that witless teenager, he would have known what was going on now.

Scanning the condo's facade with the binoculars, he could see no light filtering through the lace curtains in the living room or bedrooms. Ordinarily, either Boo or her father would be home-schooling Cal ie at that hour. Evan couldn't accept that they were gone, however, and he trained his attention so thoroughly on the empty residence that the loud rapping behind him startled him so much he nearly dropped the field glasses.

He turned to see a blond woman in a corset top and peasant skirt knocking on the passenger-side window. She mimed cranking a handle, and he rol ed the window down.

"If you're looking for Calvin Criswel , you're wasting your time." She exhaled spiced smoke into his car from the clove cigarette that stil smoldered in her right hand.

"He left a couple hours ago with his new girlfriend." The news that Boo might be romantical y involved with Criswel bored deep into Evan's chest. Nevertheless, he played coy, unsure whether this informant would turn out to be an asset or a liability. "What makes you think I'm looking for someone named Calvin...Crispin, was it?"

The woman laughed and shook her head. "Oh, puhlease. Calvin's a crook and you're a cop, right? I want to help you bust him. I saw the Indian guy staking out the place and waited for him to come back, but I guess he's stil tailing Cal."

"Ah, yes--Detective Prashad." Despite years of experience in dissembling, Evan had difficulty

maintaining a straight face as he became insta-cop. Good thing he'd put in his brown contacts before he came. "You're very perceptive, Ms....?"

"Moon. Tranquil ity Moon."

"A pleasure, Ms. Moon." Setting aside the binoculars, he got out of the car and went around to shake her hand.

"Detective Prashad and I would be grateful for any assistance you can offer our investigation."

"The pleasure is mine." She threw her cigarette butt on the sidewalk and ground it under her spike-heeled sandal. "From what I've seen, Cal's back in the forgery business, big-time."

"More than that, Ms. Moon. You're fortunate he didn't threaten your life." He nodded toward the condo with taciturn professionalism. "You say there's no one there now?"

"No. Cal said they had to go away for a few days."

"You know where?"

She smirked with sarcasm. "Like he's real y going to tel his ex."

"Yes...I see what you mean. Excuse me." Evan opened the car again and took a smal , zippered pouch from the glove compartment. "Would you mind accompanying me for a minute?"

"You want to take a statement?"

"Not yet. I want you to help me secure the crime scene."

A frown of misgiving crossed her face, but she toddled to keep up with him as he stalked across the street.

"Don't you need a warrant for that?"

"No, ma'am. Thanks to you, we now have probable cause." When they reached the condo's door, Evan indicated the front step. "Wait here. I'l go around and let you in."

"If you say so." She glanced around at the adjacent condos, self-conscious.

She needn't have worried. Evan knew that, over the years, Boo's neighbors had become so inured to Corps Security agents harassing her that they wouldn't cal the police even if they saw a stranger entering her home, as he was about to do.

He went around the garage to the end unit's security gate, where he paused to unzip the pouch he'd brought from the car. Making sure that he was hidden from Tranquil ity's sight, he took out a pair of surgical gloves that thinned like stretched taffy as he pul ed them over his fingers. He then jimmied the gate's lock with a smal screwdriver from the pouch.

Once inside the complex, Evan circled around to the condo's back door, which faced the community's pool and recreational center. Having cased the place many times during the past few weeks, he knew that, unlike the one on the front entrance, this door contained a large, four-paned window. Although it was broad

daylight and anyone in the surrounding buildings might witness him, Evan sauntered up to the door without hesitation. Infiltration, after al , depends on attitude. Act guilty, and you arouse people's suspicions; behave like you belong there, and they assume you do.

Standing with his back to the courtyard to block a clear view of what he did, Evan pretended he actual y

possessed a key and was simply having trouble turning it in the lock. In reality, he took a diamond-edged glass cutter from his pouch and etched a smal triangle from the corner of the pane closest to the doorknob. He punched the loose shard of glass inside and snaked his hand through the hole to flip the dead bolt and the lock on the knob. Barely a minute after he had left the front step, Evan entered Boo's home.

The back door opened into the kitchen, where it stood at a right angle to the door that connected with the garage. Although Evan had a switchblade in his pouch, he

pul ed a smal , sharp paring knife from a butcher's block on Boo's counter and stuck it beneath the

waistband of his jeans, tugging the tail of his black turtleneck down to cover the handle. He then passed through the dining area and living room to let

Tranquil ity in at the front door.

"Don't touch anything," he said, raising a hand to show her the gloves he wore. "Have to preserve the integrity of the crime scene."

"Whatever you say." She edged inside, wrapping her arms around her to make herself smal er and treading as if every step she took destroyed vital evidence. "You sure you don't want me to wait outside?"

"It's not safe." Evan shut the door and locked it.

"You're a material witness now."

Her glum nod showed that she did not appreciate the distinction.

"You say Criswel and his...girlfriend were taking a trip. They say how they were traveling?"

Tranquil ity shook her head.

"Let's see if we can find out." He crossed to the desk he'd noted when passing through the living room and booted up Boo's computer. Tapping keys with his

rubber fingers, he cal ed up her Internet access software and opened the file of e-mail saved on her hard drive. At the top of the list of subject lines and e-mail addresses was an "E-Ticket Confirmation" from Southwest Airlines.

Tranquil ity peered over his shoulder as he brought up the Lindstrom family's itinerary. "Find anything?"

"Possibly." Intrigued, Evan could not resist a slight smile. "LAX to BOS," the booking read. Boston: Bartholomew Wax's hometown. During the hours he

had spent in Evan's head, trying to look busy as he wasted time in Pancrit's laboratory, Dr. Wax had often daydreamed nostalgical y of Beantown in general...and one museum in particular. Now, why do you suppose Boo would want to go there?

"Ms. Moon...do you recognize this name?" He stepped to the left of the computer and pointed to Wade

Lindstrom's ticket reservation at the bottom of the screen as he slid his right hand underneath his shirttail. She bent forward to read the name. "I don't know. Looks the same as Cal's girl--"

Evan smothered her mouth with one latex-covered

hand, tilting her head back and anchoring her against his body while his other hand swept the knife up to slash her throat. Tranquil ity bugged out her eyes, as much from disbelief as from pain, while her arterial blood jetted out to spatter the computer monitor and keyboard.

Evan hugged her against him. "You've been a great help," he murmured as she squirmed. "Could you do me one more favor?" His lips brushed her ear. "Say hi to
Dan Atwater."

The strength melted from Tranquil ity's limbs, and Evan found himself supporting her weight. The spray from the wound drooped to a drizzle with the fal ing blood pressure, and her head lol ed back upon Evan's shoulder, widening the gash across her neck. When he was reasonably certain that she wouldn't bleed al over his clothes, Evan arranged her cadaver in the center of the living-room floor, pushed up the sleeves of his turtleneck, and set to work. "One times one is one," he murmured to protect himself from the dead woman's soul. "One times two is two...