Emily looked up from her hands, having paled so that her freckles appeared brighter than before. “It seemed to evaporate, dissolve. No. It was more like…the way certain salts absorb moisture from the air and just deliquesce.”
This was nothing that Jane had expected, and she felt again that she was dealing with forces so cunning and powerful that they might as well have been supernatural. “There was a residue?”
“Yes. Thin, almost clear. I sent a sample to the lab. If they ever analyzed it, I was never told.”
“You filed your report that same day.”
“Yes.”
“You weren’t alone during the autopsy.”
“There was an assistant pathologist. Charlie Weems. He was terrified. He’s a fan of sci-fi. He thought what we saw meant an alien invasion. Hell, so did I.”
“He confirmed your report?”
“At first. But I’d told him Benedetta was my niece. And pretty soon…within hours, he wasn’t backing me up anymore.”
“You were forced out—when?”
“The next day. Leave with severance pay or be fired. Not much of a choice, really.”
“And where is Charlie Weems right now?”
“He’s been promoted. He has my job. And welcome to it.” She worked her hands as if her fists had been clenched so tight that her fingers were numb. “So the FBI is on this now, huh? Really on this?”
“On it but not announced. A quiet investigation. I have to ask you to keep our discussion to yourself. You can understand why.”
“People would panic, everyone would think they’re controlled, whether they are or not.”
“Exactly. You told Benedetta’s sister, husband, mom, dad?”
Emily shook her head. “No. It was too insane, too…awful. At first I said tests were under way. Then I said a brain tumor.”
“Did they wonder why you left your job?”
“I told them I’d spent too much time with the dead. It’s a job no one understands why you took, and everyone gets why you’d quit.”
“And what about you? Eight months you’ve lived with this.”
“I never used to stress about anything. Now I stress about everything. But I don’t dream about it as much as I first did.” She looked at the Kandinsky prints—the brightly colored, energetic, and meaningless forms. “So many things happen anymore, the world going so fast, you find yourself accepting things that once would have broken your heart or driven you crazy. It’s like life used to be a carrousel, now a high-speed roller coaster.” She turned her eyes on Jane again. “I live with knowing what I saw. What else is there to do? But deep down, I’m terrified.”
“I am, too. We all are,” Jane said, implying that scores of agents were seeking the truth, a lie that was the only comfort she could give.
2
* * *
IN SPITE OF THE TIME-ZONE CHANGE, it was still mid-morning when Nathan Silverman landed at Austin International, received his rental car, and left the city on U.S. 290. As the highway ascended the Edwards Plateau, there was far more sky than land, so that the Texas plains falling to every side were vast yet felt insubstantial.
He had worked many weekends during his career in the Bureau. Never before, however, had he devoted a Saturday to an investigation that did not yet have a case number or an open file.
This would also be the first time he paid out of pocket for airline fares and other expenses with little hope of reimbursement.
He had not even bothered to learn whether one of the Bureau’s Gulfstream V jets might be scheduled for a flight to Texas, with an empty seat available. The Gulfstreams were primarily for counterterrorism and weapons-of-mass-destruction operations. They might be needed for travel related to the Philadelphia investigation. Anyway, the attorney general had authority over the FBI, and the most recent three often commandeered the Gulfstreams for their personal travel, whether that was entirely ethical or not.
By one route and another, trusting to the soft voice of the GPS, he came to a private lane. Low stone posts supported an iron framework that arced overhead and incorporated letters that spelled HAWK. From there on, the GPS had no more advice for him.
Flanked by ranch fencing, overhung here and there by an oak, the blacktop had been poured on bare earth and rolled out hard and patched as weather potholed it and furnished with new borders when time crumbled it at the edges.
Rich green grasslands lay all around. On the left, brown-and-white cattle grazed. On the right were sheep.
The two-story white-clapboard residence, shaded by ancient oaks, stood well separate from the immense barn to the south and the tree-shaded stables to the north. In a graveled parking area were a Ford 550 truck and a paneled van. He left the rental beside them and climbed the front porch steps and rang the bell.
The day was warm but not hot, still but with a feeling that the stillness might be precarious.
He had met Clare and Ancel Hawk, Nicholas’s parents, when Nick and Jane were married in Virginia, almost seven years earlier. He doubted that either of them would remember him.
She answered the door, fifty-something, tall and trim and lovely, graying hair cropped short, wearing boots and jeans and a white blouse. “Mr. Silverman. You’re a long way from Quantico.”
“Mrs. Hawk, I’m surprised you recognize me.”
“We thought you’d call or someone would come around. But here you fetch up at our door yourself. I’m more surprised than you.”
“I’m so sorry about Nick. You have my sympathy—”
She held up one hand to stop him. “I don’t talk much about that. Maybe I never will. Anyway, you haven’t traveled halfway to nowhere just to share the grief. Come on in.”
She led him through the shadowed, quiet house to the kitchen, where ledgers and receipts covered most of the dinette table.
“I’m doing the accounts, work I dearly hate. If I don’t get it done today, I’ll scream. You’ll want to talk to Ancel, but he’s at the stables with the vet. A favorite horse has come up lame.”
“Actually, Mrs. Hawk, I’d like to speak with both of you.”
She smiled. “With all these numbers fighting in my head, I’m no good for conversation. If you’ll kindly wait for Ancel on the back porch, he won’t be long. Can I get you a drink—soda, water, tea?”
Gracious though she might be, she was also wary of him.
Silverman said, “I’ll have tea if it’s not too much trouble.”
She gave him a bottle from the fridge, led him onto the porch, and left him in a rocking chair with his tea and his suspicions.
Ten minutes later, Ancel Hawk stepped out of the kitchen, onto the porch, and Silverman got up, wondering why it surprised him that the rancher was wearing a cowboy hat.
They shook hands, and Silverman asked, “How’s the horse?”
As they sat down, Ancel said, “Synovitis of the coffin joint, left front foot. Caught in time, no degeneration. Donner is a good old horse. We’ve been through some times together.”
The rancher was a big man with strong work-worn hands. Sun and wind had cured his face.
“Sweet place you have here,” Silverman said.
“Sweet it is,” Ancel agreed, “and all ours. But you didn’t come here to talk real estate.”
“I’m not here officially, either. Though it could come to that, depending. I’m concerned about Jane and wondering what she’s up to.”
Staring out at the yard and the fields beyond, giving Silverman only his profile, Ancel said, “Whatever she’s up to, it’s the right thing, and she’ll get it done. You know how she is.”
After a silence, Silverman said, “Did she leave the boy here?”
“No, sir, she did not. You’ll just have to believe me about that, but it’s true.”
“I’ve been given to understand that she’s afraid for him.”
“If she is, she’s probably right to be.”
“Why would the boy be in danger? From whom?”
“We’re all in danger in this world, Mr. Silverman. It’s mostly not a peaceable place.”
“I can’t cover for her if she’s breaking the law, Mr. Hawk.”
“She wouldn’t want you to.”
Silverman set his half-finished bottle of tea on the porch floor beside his chair. “I’m her friend, not her enemy.”
“That well may be. I’m not in a position to know.”
“I can’t help her if I don’t know what help she needs.”