Game (Jasper Dent #2)(15)

Jazz shrugged and looked out the window.

“Look, I’m not pumping you for info or anything. I’m not trying to find your dad. But I’m a homicide cop. It’s like if I had A-Rod’s batting coach in the car; how am I not supposed to ask questions? And I know the fibbies have already bugged you about him. I’m just curious. Not putting together a case or anything.”

Jazz blew out a sigh. “I’ll tell you what I told them: He’s nowhere they expect. He’s not near the Nod, watching over me or Gramma. He’s not in any of the places he used to prospect. He’s got to go somewhere where he can become invisible. A city.”

“New York?”

Jazz shrugged. “Could be. Heck, if the murders hadn’t started before he broke out of jail, I’d say maybe he was even Hat-Dog.”

“Nope. I can guarantee that’s not the case. We have consistent DNA from multiple scenes that doesn’t match Billy’s. Our unsub isn’t Billy Dent.”

Jazz snorted. Unsub. It was short, he knew, for “unknown subject,” the shorthand law enforcement used to describe their quarry. “You guys and your jargon. Makes you think you know something. Makes you think you can catch, define, and calculate the invisible world.”

He expected it to rattle Hughes, but the cop merely drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I’ve read The Crucible, too, kid. This isn’t a witch hunt. It’s real.”

On that, they both fell silent for the remainder of the drive. At the airport, Jazz watched closely as Hughes negotiated security so that he could carry his service weapon on the plane. Jazz had never flown before; he’d heard that airport security was stronger than it had once been, but if that was true, then he could only imagine that it had once been possible to carry automatic rifles openly onto planes. He lingered, watching, and made a decision.

Once his belongings were on the conveyor belt to the X-ray machine, Jazz waited until a TSA agent motioned him through the scanner. Jazz hesitated. “I’m not going through that thing,” he said. “My girlfriend told me that those full-body scanners were never fully medically tested.”

Clearly exasperated, the TSA agent said, “I assure you, they’re totally safe.”

“Right. And you’re a doctor and you can guarantee me that I let that thing scan my nads and I don’t end up sterile? Or having kids with six fingers someday?”

“So you’re opting out?”

“Yes.”

“Male opt-out!” the TSA agent called out to the universe in general.

Jazz was shunted aside to another spot. Hughes, already through security, gathered up his own stuff as well as Jazz’s and waited, frowning. Jazz didn’t react. He just lingered until a second TSA agent came over, this one wearing latex gloves.

“You’re opting out?” the agent asked.

“Yes,” Jazz said, his voice nasal and clogged. Part of it was a put-on. Part of it, though, was the little bit of shampoo he’d shot up his nose before getting into line. “Opting out.” And then he coughed—a really convincing, wet-sounding hack that made the TSA agent wince and turn away slightly.

The TSA agent talked Jazz through exactly what he was about to do and where he would be touching him. When he asked, “Do you have anything in your pockets?” Jazz said, “Just a Kleenex,” and then proceeded to produce it and blow his nose noisily into it. He left it open just long enough for the TSA agent to see the disgusting yellowish shampoo goop before folding it up.

“Just, uh, hold on to that,” the agent said, and proceeded to give Jazz the quickest, most perfunctory pat-down in the history of pat-downs. Jazz noted three spots on his body where he could have easily concealed some sort of contraband.

By the time he rejoined Hughes, the cop was shaking his head in amusement. “You are Homeland Security’s worst nightmare,” he said as they made their way to their gate.

“You could have intervened.”

“Yeah, but I know you’re harmless.”

Jazz shrugged. “You know how you said before that you have a black girlfriend, too? That was a lie. You don’t. And you never dated an ADA, either. You’re just trying to keep me out of your head because you know where I come from. You know just enough to know that I’m anything but harmless. So you make jokes and you drop in what seems like personal stuff to keep me off guard.” Jazz grinned the grin he used when he wanted to put people at ease. “You’re pretty good at it. But I’m better.”

Hughes gaped at him.

Jazz let the grin linger for another moment, then said, “I’m gonna hit the bathroom before we board,” leaving Hughes alone with his thoughts.

Later, in the cramped space of the plane, he surprised himself by falling asleep almost immediately. He didn’t even wake up when the plane took off.

He dreamed.




Touch me

says the voice

again

His fingers

Oh, the flesh

So warm

So smooth

Touch me like that

His skin on hers.

Hers.

He knows her flesh.

like that

So warm

like that

it’s all right

it’s not all right

it’s right

no, it’s wrong