“It’s okay.”
“Come on over here. Sit down. Hold my leg. Squeeze my leg tight. It’ll hurt less that way.”
The pain was terrible. But she bit down on her sleeve and squeezed his leg hard and managed not to scream as the knife cut and the blood flowed.
The bloody purse, the bloody statue of Jasmine…
They’d driven to where he’d hidden the blue Ford Focus stolen at Moss Landing, and he gave her the keys. They’d said good-bye and she’d gotten another room, in this cheap hotel. Just as she’d entered the room, and turned on the TV, lying back and cradling the agonizing wound on her head, she’d seen on the news that her Daniel had been shot dead at Point Lobos.
She’d screamed into the pillow, beaten the mattress with her bony hands. Finally she’d sobbed herself into a tortured sleep. Then she’d wakened and lain in bed, staring at the ceiling, her eyes flicking from one corner to the other. Endlessly. The compulsive gazing.
It reminded her of the endless hours lying in the bedroom when she was married, head back, waiting for the nosebleed to stop, the pain to go away.
And Tim’s bedroom.
And a dozen others.
Lying on her back, waiting, waiting, waiting…
Jennie knew she had to get up, get moving. The police were looking for her—she’d seen her driver’s license picture on TV, unsmiling, and her nose huge. Her face burned with horror at the image.
So get off your ass…
Yet for the past few hours, as she’d lain on the cheap bed, swayback and with coils ridging through the skimpy cover, she’d felt something curious within her.
A change, like the first frost of autumn. She wondered what the feeling was. Then she understood.
Anger.
This was an emotion rare to Jennie Marston. Oh, she was great at feeling bad, great at being afraid, great at scurrying, great at waiting for the pain to go away.
Or waiting for the pain to begin.
But now she was angry. Her hands shook and her breath came fast. And then, though the fury remained, she found herself completely calm. It was just like making candy—you cook the sugar for a long time until it reaches the hard-boil stage, bubbling and dangerous (it would stick to your skin like burning glue).
And then you poured it onto a piece of marble, and it cooled into a brittle sheet.
That’s what Jennie felt within her now. Cold anger within her heart. Hard…
Teeth set, heart pounding, she walked into the bathroom and took a shower. She sat at the cheap desk, in front of a mirror, and put on her makeup. She spent nearly a half-hour doing this, then looked at herself in the mirror. And she liked what she saw.
Angel songs…
She was thinking back to last Thursday, as they’d stood beside the Ford Focus, Jennie crying, hugging Daniel hard.
“I’ll miss youso much, sweetie,” she said.
Then his voice had lowered. “Now, lovely, I’ve got to go take care of something, make sure our mountaintop is safe. But there’s one thing you need to do.”
“What, Daniel?”
“Remember that night on the beach? When I needed you to help me? With that woman in the trunk?”
She nodded. “You…you want me to help you do something like that again?”
His blue eyes staring into hers. “I don’t want you tohelp . I need you to do it yourself.”
“Me?”
He’d leaned close and gazed into her eyes. “Yes. If you don’t, we’ll never have any peace, we’ll never be together.”
She slowly nodded. He’d then handed her the pistol he’d taken from the deputy guarding James Reynolds’s house. He showed her how to use it. Jennie was surprised at how easy it was.
Now, feeling the anger within her, splintery as hard candy, Jennie walked to the bed of the cheap motel and shook out the contents of the small shopping bag she was using as a purse: the gun, half of her remaining money, some personal effects and the other thing Daniel had given her: a slip of paper. Jennie now opened the note and stared at what it contained: the names Kathryn Dance, Stuart and Edie Dance, and several addresses.
She heard her lover’s voice as he’d slipped the gun into the bag and handed it to her. “Be patient, lovely.
Take your time. And what’s the most important thing I’ve taught you?”
“To stay in control,” she’d recited.
“You get an A-plus, lovely.” And he delivered what turned out to be their last kiss.
Chapter 62
Leaving headquarters, Dance headed down to the Point Lobos Inn, to see about transferring the bill from Kellogg’s credit card to the CBI’s own account.
Charles Overby wasn’t happy about the expenditure, of course, but there was an inherent conflict of interest in having a criminal defendant pay for expenses to help out the very institution that had arrested him. So Overby had agreed to swallow the cost of the inn. His shining moment of supporting Kellogg’s prosecution didn’t extend to other aspects of his personality, though. He whined mightily about the bill. (“
JordanCabernet? Who drank the Jordan? And two bottles?”)
Dance didn’t tell him that she’d volunteered to let Samantha McCoy stay there for an extra few days.
As she was driving she listened to some music by Altan, the Celtic group. “Green Grow the Rushes O”
was the song. The melody was haunting, which seemed appropriate under the circumstances, since she was en route to the location where people had died.
She was thinking of the trip to Southern California next weekend, the kids and dogs in tow. She was going to record a group of Mexican musicians near Ojai. They were fans of the website and had emailed Martine some samples of their music. Dance wanted to get some live recordings. The rhythms were fascinating. She was looking forward to the trip.