someone. It had to be something else. Someone else. It had to be. He was
just tired. His attempts at deduction were becoming ludicrous. Seth
Frank was no murderer.
He closed his eyes again. For now he believed he was safe. A few minutes
later he fell into an uneasy sleep.
THE MORNING WAS REFRESHINGLY COLD, the CLOSE, TRAPPED air expunged by
the storm of the night before.
Jack was already up; he had slept in his clothes and they looked it. He
washed his face in the small bathroom, smoothed down his hair, cut the
light off and went back into the bedroom. He sat on the bed and looked
at his vatch. Frank would not be in yet, but it wouldn’t be long now. He
pulled the box from under the bed, laid it beside him. It felt like a
time bomb next to him.
He flicked on the small color TV that sat in the corner of the room. The
early-morning local news was on. The perky blonde, no doubt aided by
substantial amounts of caffeine as she waited for her break into prime
time, was recounting the top stories.
Jack expected to see the litany of various world trouble spots. The
Middle Fast was good for at least a minute each morning. Maybe Southern
Cilifornia had had another quake.
The President fighting the Congress.
But there was only one top story this morning. Jack leaned forward as a
place he knew very well flashed across the screen.
Patton, Shaw & Lord. The lobby of PS&L. What was the woman saying?
People dead? Sandy Lord murdered?
Gunned down in his office? Jack leaped across the room and turned up
the volume. He watched with increasing astonishment as twin gumeys were
wheeled out of the building. A picture of Lord flashed into the
upper-right-hand corner of the TV screen. His distinguished career was
briefly recounted. But he was dead, unmistakably dead. In his office,
someone had shot him.
Jack fell back on the bed. Sandy had been there last night?
But who was the other person? The other one under that sheet? He
didn’t know. Couldn’t know that. But he believed he knew what had
happened. The man after him, the man with the gun. Lord must have run
into him, somehow. They were after Jack and Lord had walked right into
it.
He turned off the TV and went back into the bathroom and ran cold water
over his face. His hands shook, his throat had dried up. He could not
believe that this had all happened. So quickly. It had not been his
fault, but Jack could not help feeling enormously guilty for his
partner’s death. Guilty, Re Kate had felt. It was a crushing emotion.
He grabbed the phone and dialed.
SETH Fkwk HAD BEEN AT HIS OFFICE FOR AN HOUR ALREADY.
A contact from D.C. Homicide had tipped him to the twin slayings at the
law firm. Frank had no idea if they were connected to Sullivan. But
there was a common denominator. A common denominator that had given him
a throbbing headache and it was barely seven in the morning.
His direct line rang. He picked it up, his eyebrows arched in
semidisbelief.
“Jack, where the hell are you?”
There was a hard edge in the detective’s tone that Jack had not expected
to hear.
“Good morning to you too.”
“Jack, do you know what’s happened?”
“I just saw it on the news. I was there last night, Seth.
They were after me; I don’t know exactly how but Sandy must’ve walked
into it and they killed him.”
“Who? Who killed him?”
“I don’t know! I was at the office, I heard a noise. The next thing I
know I’m being chased through the building by someone with a gun and I
barely get out of there with my head intact. Do the police have any
leads?”
Frank took a deep breath. The story sounded so fantastic.
He believed in Jack, trusted him. But who could be absolutely certain
about anyone these days?
“Seth? Seth?”
Frank bit on his nail, thinking furiously. Depending on what he did next
one of two totally different events would take place. He momentarily