Cold Springs(81)

Nineteen forty-seven, the 22nd Amendment. Eighteen forty-seven, the Mexican War.

Seventeen forty-seven.

He got stuck, thinking William Pitt and the colonies, not coming up with a good event.

Finally, he went back inside, rolled the glass door shut. On his desk, Katherine's picture smiled at him—an eight-year-old girl wreathed in morning glories.

A knock at the door. Asa Hunter came in without waiting for permission. Kindra Jones tailed him.

“She blames herself,” Hunter said tersely. “She's trying to cover for you.”

“It was my fault,” Chadwick answered. “Going back to Zedman's was totally my idea.”

“Goddamn it, Chadwick.” Hunter chopped the air in front of his face like he was trying to wake him up. “What happened to me being the first to know, huh?”

“I have to talk to Mallory.”

“AND you got the nerve to make a request like that. God Almighty.”

Kindra looked like she wanted to say something, but Chadwick caught her eye, gave her a mute warning to stay silent.

“I had to defend you,” Hunter fumed. “Marin Sheriff's Office called, asked what was your background before Cold Springs. Did you have some grudge against John Zedman? How did you handle your daughter's death? What was I supposed to tell them?”

“They say anything about the blood?”

“It's John Zedman's. They're treating his disappearance as a homicide.”

Chadwick felt the air particles slow, like a whirlpool changing direction. He thought about the fear that had been growing in the back of his mind—something about Pérez's phone message: Everything's cool. I'll call you. As if he'd been sent on a mission, maybe to retrieve Mallory. As if John had tried to preempt something his blackmailer was doing. The last time John had tried something like that, Talia Montrose had been butchered.

“Asa, I have to see Mallory. She may be in danger.”

“The only danger is whether we disrupt her program with news like yours.”

“I heard about the cut harness on the rope course.”

“It wasn't cut,” Hunter snarled. “I checked it myself. I looked at every harness, every rope, every goddamn piece of equipment we own. The harness broke.”

“Along a straight line.”

“It can happen. It did happen. The gear was distributed randomly. There's no way anyone could've targeted her.”

“Anyone who wasn't there, you mean.”

Hunter raised a finger like a gun. “Don't push it, amigo. My program is safe. It was an accident. Mallory Zedman will finish Black Level. Her group's in the wilderness now. I won't let you disturb her any more than I'll let the police.”

“Someone's got inside the school, Asa. Someone who's working with the black levels. John Zedman said they could describe Mallory's day.”

“Not possible.”

“The girl knows something. I think she was being used as leverage to make John cooperate. Now that he's gone, the blackmailer may have what he wants. In which case, the girl is expendable.”

Hunter cut his eyes toward Kindra Jones, as if deliberating whether to ask her to leave.

“Jones says you let that kid go,” he told Chadwick. “Race Montrose.”

“As I recall, you wanted to make sure the boy got a fair shake.”

“Not at the expense of losing you. Not if it comes down to a choice between you and some kid in Oakland—”

“I couldn't turn Race in.”

“He lied to you, Chadwick. You understand that? What makes you so sure you didn't cause another murder by letting him go?”

Chadwick couldn't answer. He'd been plagued by the same thought, agonizing about it the whole plane trip back, ever since he realized Race had given him a snow-job about Samuel being alive.

At the very least, he should've told Damarodas that he'd tracked down Race. But Chadwick's gut still insisted the boy wasn't a killer. Letting him go had been the right thing to do. Free, Race might yet make some good decisions. There were no good decisions to make in a jail cell.

“Mallory needs to know what's going on,” Chadwick insisted. “I owe that much to her parents.”

Hunter balled his fists. He seemed to be searching his memory for a boxing routine that would fit the Quartet No. 14 in G Major. Failing to find one, he said, “Ten minutes. Clearing Six. And Chadwick—don't make me regret this.”

After he'd left, Jones sank onto the edge of the bed. “I don't think I want to see Hunter that mad again.”

“He's got a lot at stake.”

Kindra gave him a look he couldn't quite read. “Yeah, I suppose he does. Almost thought he wanted me to quit in that debriefing.”

Debriefing.

It hadn't even occurred to Chadwick, but of course it was one week since Kindra had signed on board. Hunter would've done his standard debriefing to ascertain if, by some miracle, she was interested in staying with the job, or if he needed to keep his perpetual ad open in the educational journals.

The thought of losing another partner, on top of everything else, made Chadwick want to fly back to Oakland and take a high dive off Ella Montrose's fire escape.

Finally he mustered the courage to ask: “You moving on?”