hour of the morning. Sidney waited in the cab line and then decided to
make a quick phone call before she went to JFK. She planned to dump the
gun before leaving for the airport. However, the cold metal gave her a
feeling of security she desperately needed right now. She still had not
decided where she was traveling, but at least the cab ride to the
airport would give her time to think of a destination.
On her way to the pay phone, she grabbed a copy of the Washington Post
and scanned the headlines. Nothing about the murders had appeared yet;
however, the bodies could have been found and the reporters might simply
not have had time to file their stories before deadline. If her two
former partners hadn’t been found yet, it would not be long now. The
parking garage opened to the public at seven A.M. but it could be
accessed at any time by tenants of the building.
She dialed her parents’ number in Bell Harbor. An automated message
greeted her and announced that the number was not in service.
She groaned as she suddenly remembered why. Her parents always had the
phone turned off during the winter. Her father had probably forgotten
to turn the service back on. He would certainly do so once he got up
there. Since it wasn’t back on, that meant they probably hadn’t arrived
yet.
Sidney swiftly calculated travel times. When she had been a child, her
father would drive all the way through, about thirteen hours, stopping
along the way only for food and gas. As he had grown older, though, he
had become more patient. Ever since his retirement, he would stop along
the way for the night, break the trip up into two days. If they had
left early yesterday afternoon, as planned, that would put them in Bell
Harbor at about midafternoon today. If they had left as planned. It
suddenly occurred to Sidney that she had not verified her parents’
departure yet. She decided to correct that oversight immediately. The
phone rang three times and then the answering machine picked up. She
spoke into the phone to let her parents know it was she. They often
screened their calls.
However, no one picked up the phone. She put the phone receiver back.
She would try again from the airport. She checked her watch and decided
to make one more phone call. Now that she knew of Paul Brophy’s
involvement with RTG, something didn’t make sense to her. There was
only one person she could think of to ask about it.
And she had to do it before news of the murders reached the public.
“Kay? It’s Sidney Archer.”
The voice on the other end of the line was sleepy at first and then wide
awake as Kay Vincent sat up in bed. “Sidney?”
“I’m sorry to call so early, but I really need your help on something.”
Kay didn’t answer. “Kay, I know what all the papers have been saying
about Jason.”
Kay’s voice cut her off. “I don’t believe any of that stuff, Sidney.
Jason could never have been involved in any of that.”
Sidney breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you for saying that, Kay.
I was beginning to think I was the only one who hadn’t lost the faith.”
“Not by a long shot, Sidney. How can I help you?”
Sidney took a moment to calm her nerves, to keep her voice from shaking
too much. She eyed a police officer walking down the hallway of the
train station. She turned her back to him and hunched against the wall.
“Kay, you know Jason never really talked to me about his work.”
Kay snorted. “It’s no small wonder. It’s beaten into our heads here:
Everything’s one big secret.”
“Right. But now secrets don’t do me any good. I need to know what
Jason was working on the last few months. Were there any big projects
he was on?”
Kay shifted the phone to her other ear. Her husband was snoring on the
other side of the bed. “Well, you know he was working on organizing the
financial records for the CyberCom deal. That took a lot of his time.”