The Last Equation of Isaac Severy(73)
“Maybe she’s at her therapist.”
“No, that was yesterday. I didn’t want to panic you, but—”
“Start looking.”
“I don’t have the car.”
“Do what you can, Faye. I’m coming home.” He hung up.
After trying Jane several times and getting no answer, Philip went to the front door to leave. He was met by Cavet, who stood there like a butler, in shoes this time.
“Leaving without good-bye?”
“Something’s come up.”
As Cavet opened the door, he simultaneously passed Philip a square envelope, stamped with the brain-spiral. “She was afraid you’d run off before she had a chance to give you the details of the offer. It’s all there.” Cavet slapped a chummy hand on his back. “I’m looking forward to working with a Severy.”
Without a reply, Philip slipped the envelope into his pocket and left.
He knew what he needed to do. He needed to drive quickly toward that red dot on the border of the Angeles National Forest. It seemed an odd place for a murder, at the very edge of the park, south of Mount Wilson. A tiny circle nestled just inside the green expanse . . . Eaton Canyon. Yes, he was sure of it now: that familiar twist of trail that he and Jane knew so well. The time code had read November 15, and then—he closed his eyes, summoning the rest—171126, 5:11 p.m. and 26 seconds. He checked his watch. That was 90 minutes from now.
Starting the car, Philip remembered with growing alarm the discussion he’d last had with his wife in the canyon. He floored the gas and drove as fast as he dared down the hill, casting a swift, paranoid glance in the rearview mirror to make sure Nellie wasn’t having him tailed. When he pulled onto the Pacific Coast Highway, his chest was pounding. And soon the pounding beneath his ribs was echoed by a far-off drumbeat in his brain.
–?23?–
The Station
Hazel parked the Cadillac in Chinatown and proceeded to Union Station on foot, arriving thirty-five minutes ahead of the time indicated on the map. It wasn’t until she neared the station entrance that she realized there was more at stake here than just finding Alex. Someone, presumably, was going to die in a half hour. She wondered if an anonymous tip to the police might be in order, but what would she say? Instead, she called her brother. She was now ready to spill everything to Gregory in one long breath, no longer caring that Isaac had warned her not to. But he didn’t pick up. Considering the condition she’d seen him in yesterday, this didn’t exactly surprise her. Could he be embarrassed? Hazel left a message asking him to call her, that it was urgent.
She paused to look up at the clock tower: ten minutes to nine. The tower was a familiar sight from childhood trips to the station. Her transportation-obsessed grandfather had considered such visits an essential part of her and Gregory’s education. But aside from a few novelty train rides, Hazel had rarely taken the railroad as an adult. A pity, because she had always been a sucker for the majesty of the place. While the building’s Mission Revival exterior informed passersby that they were squarely in the Southwest, the interior’s Deco typefaces and Streamline Moderne embellishments ushered commuters through the modern age of travel, stylishly directing them to railway platforms, ticket sales, and baggage claim. As she passed beneath the sentinel palms on either side of the arched entrance, she wished for a moment that she had a valise dangling from one hand and a first-class sleeper ticket in the other. The urge to disappear was overpowering.
As this romantic notion subsided, an image of Alex rushed to take its place. Hazel’s ears burned with humiliation and anger at the idea of seeing him. Then again, there were dots all over the city. She could see only a fragment of the map on her phone, and he could very well be in Inglewood or Compton or Carson, or wherever else people die. Or, more precisely, where they are murdered. Isn’t that what Raspanti had been trying to tell her?
Ordinarily, Union Station would have been deserted that time of night, with only a few desultory travelers among the rows of imitation leather chairs. Or an odd commuter catching a local back to Pasadena or North Hollywood. But the station was remarkably lively. A wedding party had rented out the now-defunct ticketing area, an enormous room off the lobby. The space featured a row of intimidating oak counters designed to imbue the act of buying a train ticket with the gravity of going to a bank. The wedding, which was evidently Old Hollywood–themed, was entering its phase of sloppy abandon. The female guests shrieked and shimmied in their bias-cut dresses, and heavy-lidded men with martini glasses and vape pens leaned on ticket counters.
Hazel hesitated at the information booth, entranced momentarily by the beauty of the celebration. She turned and followed a glamorous couple across the marble floor and past the station’s cocktail lounge, which was filled with the moody, antisocial spillover from the wedding. Her breath stopped when she spotted Alex sitting among a clutch of tables just outside the bar. He wore a wrinkled blazer and was nursing a bright-red cocktail. He stared at her, a quizzical expression on his face.
She strode in his direction, trying her best to appear as if she knew what she was doing, as if she had a plan.
He spoke first. “Can I get you a drink?”
She pulled out a chair, but didn’t sit. “Whatever you’re having is fine,” she said coldly, but there was a tremor in her voice.