Joe also flashed back to something Lisa Peccatone had said in the kitchen at the Delmann house when the relationship between Rose Tucker and Teknologik was mentioned: You and me and Rosie all connected. Small world, huh?
At the time, he had thought she was referring to the fact that Flight 353 had become a spring point in the arcs of all their lives. Maybe what she really meant was that all of them worked for the same man.
Joe had never met Horton Nellor, who had become something of a recluse over the years. He’d seen photographs, of course. The billionaire, now in his late sixties, was silver-haired and round-faced with pleasing if somewhat blurred features. He looked like a muffin on which, with icing, a baker had painted a grandfather face.
He did not appear to be a killer. He was known as a generous philanthropist. His reputation was not that of a man who would hire assassins or condone murder in the maintenance or expansion of his empire.
Human beings, however, were different from apples and oranges:
The flavour of the peel did not reliably predict the taste of the pulp. The fact remained that Joe and Michelle had worked for the same man as those who now wanted to kill Rose Tucker and who—in some as yet incomprehensible manner—had evidently destroyed Nationwide 353. The money that had long supported his family was the same money that had financed their murders.
His response to this revelation was so complexly tangled that he could not quickly unknot it, so dark that he could not easily see the entire shape of it. Greasy fingers of nausea seined his guts. Although he stared out the window for perhaps half an hour, he was not aware of the desert surrendering to the suburbs or the suburbs to the city. He was surprised when he realized that they were descending toward LAX.
On the ground, as they taxied to the assigned gate and as the telescoping mobile corridor was linked like an umbilical between the 737 and the terminal, Joe checked his wristwatch, considered the distance to Westwood, and calculated that he would be at least half an hour early for his meeting with Demi. Perfect. He wanted enough time to scope the meeting place from across the street and a block away before committing himself to it.
Demi should be reliable. She was Rose’s friend. He had gotten her number from the message that Rose had left for him at the Post. But he wasn’t in the mood to trust anyone.
After all, even if Rose Tucker’s motives had been pure, even if she had kept Nina with her to prevent Teknologik from killing or kidnapping the girl, she had nevertheless withheld Joe’s daughter from him for a year. Worse, she had allowed him to go on thinking that Nina—like Michelle and Chrissie—was dead. For reasons that he could not yet know, perhaps Rose would never want to return his little girl to him.
Trust no one.
As he got up from his seat and started forward toward the exit, he noticed a man in white slacks, white shirt, and white Panama hat rise from a seat farther forward in the cabin and glance back at him. The guy was about fifty, stockily built, with a thick mane of white hair that made him look like an aging rock star, especially under that hat.
This was no stranger.
For an instant, Joe thought that perhaps the man was, in fact, a lower-case celebrity—a musician in a famous band or a character actor from television. Then he was certain that he had seen him not on screen or stage but elsewhere, recently, and in significant circumstances.
Mr. Panama looked away from him after a fraction of a second of eye contact, stepped into the aisle, and moved forward. Like Joe, he was not burdened by any carry-on luggage, as though he had been on a day-trip.
Eight or ten passengers were between the day-tripper and Joe. He was afraid he would lose track of his quarry before he figured out where he had previously seen him. He couldn’t push along the narrow aisle past the intervening passengers without causing a commotion, however, and he preferred not to let Mr. Panama know that he had been spotted.