assimilate. Julie had liked an respected Hal, Clint, and Felina
enormously, and her admiration for the deaf woman’s courage and
self-sufficiency washounded. It was unfair that she could not mourn
each of the individually; they deserved that much. She also felt that
she was somehow betraying them because her sorrow at their deaths was
only a pale reflection of the grief she felt at the lose of Thomas,
though that was, of course, the only way it could be.
Her breath caught in her throat, and when it flew free, i was not just
an exhalation but a sob. That was no good. Sh could not allow herself
to break down. At no point in her life had she needed to be as strong
as she needed to be now; the murders committed in Orange County tonight
were the fir in a domino-fall of death that would take down her and
Bobby too, if misery dulled their edge.
While Bobby continued to kneel before her and reveal moor details-Derek
was dead, too, and perhaps others at Ciel Vista-she gripped his hands
tightly, inexpressibly gratefulhave him for an anchor in this
turbulence. Her vision was blurry, but she held back the tears with a
sheer effort of will though she dared not make eye contact with Bobby
just seeing that would be the end of her self-control.
When he finished, she said,
“It was Frank’s brother,course,”
and was dismayed by the way her voice quavered.
“Almost certainly,” Bobby said.
“But how did he find out Frank was our client?”
“I don’t know. He saw me on the beach at Punaluu-”
“Yeah, but didn’t follow you. He has no way of knowin who you were. And
for God’s sake, how did he find out about Thomas?”
“There’s some crucial bit of information missing, so we can’t understand
the pattern.”
“What’s the bastard after?” she said. Now her voice was marked by
nearly as much anger as grief, and that was good.
“He’s hunting Frank,” Bobby said.
“For seven years Frank was a loner, and that made him harder to find.
Now Frank has friends, and that gives Candy more ways to search for
him.”
“I as good as killed Thomas when I took the case,” she said.
“You didn’t want to take it. I had to talk you into it.”
“I talked you into it, you wanted to back out.”
“If there’s guilt, we share it, but there isn’t any. We took on a new
client, that’s all, and everything… just happened.” Julie nodded and
finally met his eyes. Although his voice had remained steady, tears
slid down his cheeks. Preoccupied with her own grief, she had forgotten
that the friends lost were his as well as hers, and that he had come to
love Thomas nearly as much as she did. She had to look away from him
again.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“For now, I have to be. Later, I want to talk about Thomas, how brave
he was about being different, how he never complained, how sweet he was.
I want to talk about all of it, you and me, and I don’t want us to
forget. Nobody’s ever going to build a monument to Thomas, he wasn’t
famous, he was, just a little guy who never did anything great except be
the best person he knew how, and the only monument he’s ever going to
have is our memories. So we’ll keep him alive,-won’t we?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll keep him alive… until we’re gone. But that’s for later, when
there’s time. Now we have to keep ourselves alive, because that son of
a bitch will be coming for us, won’t he?”
“I think he will,” Bobby said.
He rose from his knees and pulled her up from the chair.
He was wearing his dark brown Ultraseude jacket with the shoulder
holster under it. She’d taken off her corduroy blazer and her holster;
she put both of them on again. The weight of the revolver, against her
left side, felt good. She hoped she’d have a chance to use it.
Her vision had cleared; her eyes were dry. She said,
“One’ thing for sure-no more dreams for me. What good is it, haing