Crosscut

by Meg Gardiner

  Heaney turned, startled. Dad nodded.

  “Another of Evan’s classmates,” he explained. “Air force surgical nurse who died after going under the knife herself.”

  “Shit,” Jesse said.

  “It happened postop. An O2 line had a leak, and a spark from an electrocautery tool set off a flash fire. The O2 line fed overhead back to the tanks, which were near some nitrous oxide tanks. The clinic went up like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  “Get to the part about arson.”

  “Dana was alone in the OR when it happened.”

  Jesse’s mouth went wide. “No way. The surgical team left her alone?”

  “Small-time clinic, the OR served as their recovery room as well.”

  “Still, nobody was monitoring her?”

  “That’s not the shocking part. The doors to the OR were locked shut from the outside.”

  “Oh, my God,” I said.

  “Somebody set it up. He managed to get access to a military facility and convince people he belonged there. And he knew how to make it look like a catastrophic accident.”

  The sound of traffic grated against my ears. The implications sank in.

  “Dad, that’s not the shocking part. He didn’t just want to kill Dana. He wanted that clinic eradicated.”

  Dad nodded. A sick taste spread through my mouth.

  “Because the place was contaminated with something,” I said.

  “That’s the conclusion I’m drawing.”

  Heaney looked exhausted but intent. “Can you get me that stuff now?”

  “Certainly.”

  We headed back inside. The crime scene techs were still working in the lobby. The painters and janitors were waiting for them to finish so they could clean up the mess under the scaffold.

  I took Dad’s elbow. “How did you find out all this?”

  “Called in some favors.”

  “How many?”

  “About all of them.”

  He’d done an astounding amount of research in only thirty-six hours, apparently involving wheedling and coaxing brutal memories out of grieving parents.

  “You always dig this hard and this deep?” I said.

  His expression told me I’d asked a stupid question. Of course he didn’t. He always dug deep, but he clawed at a problem this hard only when his family was involved.

  He put his hand over mine. “After I get the things for Heaney I have some work to do. You get going and I’ll catch up tomorrow.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’re not going to stay at home tonight.”

  “No, I’ll stay at Jesse’s.”

  His heels clacked on the marble floor. He leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “Is he liable to have another one of these blackouts?”

  Jesse answered, from closer than I’d expected. “I didn’t black out, and no. I won’t let it happen again.”

  He pushed past us, off balance and angry. I opened my mouth, but knew that words would be worse than silence. He disappeared around the corner. We followed, and stopped. I grimaced. He was in front of the parking garage elevator, reading the sign taped to the doors: OUT OF SERVICE.

  He gripped his push-rims. “Ev, can you go get the truck?”

  “Sure.”

  He fumbled the car keys out of his jeans pocket. They fell from his fingers to the floor. He bent down to pick them up and Dad’s golf shirt ripped open at the shoulder seam.

  “Shoot. Sorry.”

  He handed me the keys. He looked at the sign. And he hauled off, slamming the elevator control panel with the heel of his hand. The call button squealed.

  For a moment he held his breath. Then his shoulders dropped. He laughed cheerlessly.

  “Can’t tell me this freaking building doesn’t deserve it.” He spun and wheeled away. “I’ll meet you out front.”

  For a second I watched his back. “Wait.”

  But he was already gone around the corner. I called again and went after him. He was halfway across the lobby.

  “Jesse.” I ran and caught him from behind, wrapping my arms around his shoulders. We skidded to a stop on the marble.

  “Evan, what are you doing?”

  I circled in front of him and put my hands on his knees. “I have to tell you.”

  “What?”

  I looked around for someplace where people wouldn’t interrupt. One of the scenic elevators opened and a woman got out.

  “Hold that,” I said.

  She caught the door. Jesse looked bothered and baffled.

  “Will you please—”

  “Move. Now.” I gave him the death stare.

  He backed up, fast, into the elevator. “Delaney, what the hell is going on with you?”

  I pressed the close button. When the doors eked shut, I hit stop.

  He frowned with confusion. “Did you drink some funky Kool-Aid up in Swayze’s lab?”

  “No, I’m pregnant.”

  “And I’m smoking crack. Just tell me.”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  It was like sprinting to the edge of a roof and leaping blindly off, not knowing whether he’d be there to catch me. His eyes widened. His lips parted. As if he, not I, had just been thrown off a roof. Sweet Jesus, don’t hyperventilate again. Don’t hit the alarm bell. Don’t ask for proof, or for a fire ax to smash the doors open and escape.

  I dug my fingernails into my palms. “Say something.”

  He looked as though he were running ten scripts in his head, one after the next, boom-boom-boom. His expression was beyond bewildered, beyond shocked. It was unearthly. His gaze dropped from my face to my belly.

  “Damn,” he said.

  I gritted my teeth.

  “Damn.”

  I wanted to swallow, but a sock was stuffed down my throat.

  “You’re sure?” he said.

  I turned my face to the glass. “Not a hundred percent.”

  “You have to be sure.”

  I nodded, staring furiously out the glass at the lobby.

  “Please,” he said. “Tell me it’s true.”

  He took my hand. I looked. He was blinking as though his eyes stung. His grip was hard.

  “Tell me this is real, because otherwise you’re going to break me in two.”

  My voice sounded disembodied. “You’re happy?”

  “Hell, yes, I’m happy. This is . . .” His face fell. “Aren’t you?”

  He couldn’t hide the ache in his eyes. He was holding joy in check, for fear that I’d give him an answer he didn’t want to hear. I thought, in that moment, that I’d never loved anybody more in my life.

  “I’m thrilled,” I said.

  He pulled me onto his lap, held me tight, and kissed me.

  And kissed me again. “God, I can’t believe—”

  “Me neither.” I wrapped my arms around his neck. “I never thought—”

  “I know.” He clutched me to him, kissing me again. “Especially—”

  Again. Laughing. “Impossible, yeah.”

  There was a knock on the glass. My father was standing outside the elevator with his phone to his ear. His face was set. He waved me out, mouthing, Swayze.

  I turned back to Jesse. “This news is between you, me, and the pregnancy test.”

  His eyes cut to Dad, who looked as chilly as an iceberg. “Fine with me.”

  Dad rapped a knuckle on the glass.

  Jesse pressed his fingers to the corners of his eyes, pretending that he had something in them, and shook his head. “I can’t even . . . damn. It’s . . . I don’t . . .”

  The loopy clown grin painted my face. “Jesse Blackburn, speechless. Oh, that I have lived to see this day.”

  He gave me a cockeyed smile. I stood up and pushed the open button. He pulled me back.

  “Do you know how much I love you?”

  I kissed him again. “Yeah, daddy-o. I know.”

  I walked out of the elevator with my hands up, showing I wasn’t armed, so to speak. Dad waved m
e over.

  “I agree with you, Sway. Scared the piss out of all of us.”

  He gestured me closer. I put my ear near the phone.

  “We need to talk.” Swayze’s voice had a needly tension to it. “Eller’s Diner in Westwood Village, a block down from the medical center. I’m meeting the FBI agent there in forty-five minutes. Can you be there in thirty?”

  “Certainly, but we can talk right now. I’m still here in your building.”

  “I’m not. That place was giving me the creeps. I had to get out of there.”

  “Maureen, what’s this about?”

  “You want a name? I have one,” she said. “I know who Coyote is.”

  16

  Eller’s Diner was bright and loud, and the coffee was bitter. I drank two swallows before the new reality hit: I needed to switch to decaf. Holy cow. Nine months without java—and people thought my PMS was bad. In caffeine withdrawal I would be a screaming meemie. I pushed the cup away.

  “Good idea,” Dad said. “I think you’re already het up enough for one day.”

  “I’m not overwrought. And neither is Jesse. And things are fine with us.”

  He ran a hand across his bristly white hair, watching the door. He had the gunfighter seat, back against the wall.

  “That’s between you two. Some things a father knows better than to inquire about.”

  “Even if the father used to be in naval intelligence?”

  He turned his head, slowly, to look at me. “Sounds like you and your mom had a rip-roaring girls’ night out last night.” His gaze panned back across the diner. He waved. “Sway.”

  She strode to our table, her face pinched, and sat down with a thud. Her feet stuck out coltishly on either side of her chair.

  “Where’s your boyfriend?” she said. “Arranging to have himself put on exhibit in the pop-art wing at the Getty?”

  “Buying some clean clothes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were a journalist?”

  “It wasn’t relevant, and how’d you find that out?”

  “Instantaneous telepathic communication with the robo-grunt cabal.”

  Monotone, I said, “Right, the hive mind. I read about that.”

  She smirked. “Google. It took a tenth of a second. And your profession is extremely relevant.”

  The waitress bustled up and poured her some coffee. Swayze waited for her to leave.

  “Once I speak to the FBI, I’m afraid the press will get hold of me. I need some blockers to help me get downfield.”

  “You want us to make you look good for the media if this all blows up?”

  She made air quotes with her fingers. “ ‘Researcher Bred Supersoldiers.’ They’d show me walking out of the office in slow motion, with the Jaws theme playing in the background. I need you to be willing to tell them I didn’t glorify the production of slavering killbots.”

  “What do you expect me to do?”

  “If it turns out that the name I have is the guy, be fair. And tell people that I’m the one who came forward.”

  She glanced at Dad, eyes pleading. “I can’t let this damage the integrity of my current research. Primacon is doing fantastic work.”

  He put a hand on her arm. “Nobody wants to cut the legs out from under your current research.”

  “I have to protect it.” She ran a hand into her ponytail, making it even more disheveled than before. “If they start screeching that I cooked up a serial killer, will you tell them I don’t have horns and a pitchfork?”

  “I’ll do that,” he said.

  She nodded brusquely. Drank her coffee. Set the mug down, hard.

  “I thought I had put China Lake to bed, permanently. Now this.” She blew air through her lips. “That . . . animal was downstairs at my office building, scouting the premises.” Hands out again. “Why?”

  “Because South Star affected his health,” Dad said.

  “And now the gal who made him sick is a target? But that’s impossible. I couldn’t have made him sick.” She gazed at him. Finally she exhaled. “This guy scares me to hell. Can you tell? This is my scared-to-hell face.”

  Dad patted her arm.

  “Who is he?” I said.

  “There was a youngster who joined our project. Early twenties. Ex-army. Pale, slight, blond. Obsessively neat, very mission oriented.”

  “Was he a test subject?”

  “Yes. I never knew which agency he actually worked for, and I didn’t strive to find out.”

  “What’s his name?” I said.

  “Kai Torrance.”

  She spelled the first name for us, making sure we got it. “Good luck to the cops and FBI finding him. He disappeared somewhere down the rabbit hole. Government, soldier of fortune, who knows. He could be working at Disneyland, operating the boats for It’s a Small World.”

  “That ride could turn anybody into a serial killer,” I said.

  “He wasn’t physically distinctive. No major accidents or illnesses, no distinguishing characteristics except one.” She drank her coffee. “He was nocturnal.”

  Man. “Because of South Star’s insomnia research?”

  “No. He claimed to have adopted the habit growing up on the street in Hollywood.” She leaned in. “If you believed him, he and his mother lived in an awful apartment off of Franklin. She was a drug addict, and when she got high he would spend nights up on the roof. I took his street-kid story as a self-created myth, but the nocturnal-ism was genuine. Then he began going out into the back ranges up by the petroglyphs, to be one with the ancients.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said.

  “He thought he was a reincarnated native spirit god. One of the shamanistic drawings brought to life.”

  “Shit.”

  “He spoke repeatedly about one carving, a coyote. The trickster, he said, very powerful. This is why I know he’s your man. He must have adapted his own name into the code name. Kai Torrance. Kai T—Coyote.”

  My heart was drumming. “Did he get the pain vaccine?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened to him?” Dad asked.

  “Nothing. The vaccine didn’t work.”

  “You’re joking,” I said.

  She turned in her chair. “Yes. This is my joking face. Go ahead, laugh your head off.” Deadpan expression. “The vaccine didn’t work.”

  “I’d say you’re getting results right here, today.”

  She pressed her lips tight.

  “The day of the explosion at Renegade Canyon. Was Torrance at that cinder-block building when it blew up?” I said.

  “Off the record?”

  I nodded.

  “Permanently off the record.” Her chin lowered. “That was supposed to be a controlled demolition. There were botched communications with the school district and . . .” She took off her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose.

  “You didn’t know our class was going to be nearby?”

  “Of course not.” She shook her head. “It should never have happened. But we took all steps to ensure that you kids didn’t suffer any ill effects.”

  “But apparently we did.”

  “No, it’s not possible.”

  “Coyote is killing us because of it. It isn’t possible; it’s fact.”

  Her face was as tight as cloth caught in a wringer.

  “Was Torrance there that day?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  Across the diner, we saw Dan Heaney’s rumpled suit filling the doorway. Swayze nodded and he began making his way over to the table. Dad and I stood to go.

  She looked up. “I don’t have the slightest idea why Torrance is after any of us. But if it turns out that I had anything to do with it, I’ll kill myself.”

  Coming from anybody else, I would have taken that metaphorically. With Swayze I wasn’t so sure.

  We walked outside just as Jesse pulled up. He had on a new blue-and-white-striped shirt and brown jeans. He lowered the window and handed Dad a bag from Macy’s.


  “Nearest thing to your black golf shirt I could find.”

  “Appreciate it.” Dad gazed into the truck. “Got room for Evan in there with all those roses?”

  Jesse smiled inscrutably.

  Dad put a hand to my cheek. “I’ll get to Santa Barbara as soon as I can.” He kissed my forehead and turned back to Jesse. “Grow eyes in the back of your head, son. I’m counting on you.”

  “Hey, honey. You want to party?”

  The woman leaned her elbows on the window frame and smiled into the truck at Coyote. She was flabby and she was old, as far as whores went. Almost forty, he guessed, from the way her breasts sagged in the magenta tube top. Beneath the careless peroxide job, her roots mixed black with bird-shit gray. She wasn’t bitchy or hard or even disillusioned, like the runaways from Minnesota who would come out when the sun went down. She was simply tired. She was out on the street in the middle of the day.

  He leaned across the truck toward her, Mr. Horny Guy on a business trip to southern California. “Depends. You have a place we can go?”

  This was the crux of the negotiation. No hotels. No alleys. Not this vehicle. He had already driven away from three prostitutes who couldn’t provide.

  “My place,” she said.

  “Close by?”

  “Just up the road.”

  He smiled and opened the door. She climbed in.

  “It’s fifty for the first hour, hundred for the afternoon. And I don’t do anal.”

  “Is it quiet? I don’t want anybody interrupting our party.”

  “Quiet as a tomb. That the kind of party you after?”

  He signaled and pulled back into traffic. “That’s perfect.”

  17

  It was three p.m. when Jesse and I pulled into my driveway. The day felt cooler here than in Los Angeles, the sky bluer, the city more tranquil. The mountains shone green behind the house, and children’s voices burbled from the school playground up the street.

  I hopped out. “Half an hour and I should be packed and out of here. I’ll meet you at your place this evening.”

  He began grabbing his gear from the back of the cab. “I’m coming in.”

  “That’s okay. I know you’re dying to stock up on baby supplies. Jimi Hendrix CDs, Black’s Law Dictionary, Beavis and Butt-Head DVDs, all that good stuff.”