3 Great Thrillers

by Churton, Alex; Churton, Toby; Locke, John; Lustbader, Eric van; van Lustbader, Eric

  Neither of them was a starry-eyed idealist; in fact, over the years, they’d each brokered difficult deals, made compromises, some of them painful, in order to achieve their goals. But both did believe that the country was on the wrong path and needed to be set right. So they had agreed. Whenever he could, Paull would secretly work against the Administration’s weakening of democratic freedoms, and in return, Edward Carson would name him Secretary of Defense.

  The two men sat in what under other circumstances would have been a comfortable silence. But between them now was the specter of Alli’s abduction and possible death.

  “How are you two holding up?” Paull had noticed the president-elect’s reddened eyes the moment he walked through the door.

  “As well as can be expected. Any news from Jack?”

  “Jack is doing everything he can, I’ve made certain of that,” Paull said. “And he’s protected.”

  “Protected.” Carson’s head swung around. “From who?”

  Paull stared down into the amber drink, watching the light play off the surface. Only amateurs drank single-malt with ice. “I’d like to say I knew for certain, but I don’t.”

  “Give me the next best thing, then.”

  Paull had been told that no bodies had been found in the wreck, which meant that Jack had somehow survived the attack. He thought for a moment. “The knives are out. All signs point to the National Security Advisor.” He lifted his eyes. “Trouble is, I suspect he’s not in it alone.”

  Paull, staring into the president-elect’s eyes, knew Carson understood he’d meant the president.

  After a moment, Carson said very deliberately, “Can you get proof?”

  Paull shook his head. “Not before January twentieth. Given time, I think I’ll be able to find a chink in the National Security Advisor’s armor, but I very much doubt I’ll get further.”

  Maintaining plausible deniability was any president’s first priority, his most potent line of defense. Carson nodded, sipped his drink. “Getting one will have to suffice, then. It’ll be your first order of business come January twenty-first.”

  “Believe me, it’ll be a pleasure.”

  The ship’s clock on the mantel chimed in the new hour. Time lay heavy on Edward Carson’s shoulders.

  “Look at them down there, Dennis. It’s that hour when the workday is over, when everyone lets out a sigh of relief on their way home. But for me, does evening bring darkness, or the end of my daughter’s life?”

  “Do you believe in God, sir?”

  The president-elect nodded. “I do.”

  “Then for you everything will be all right, won’t it?”

  It was late when Nina dropped Jack off. His car, windshield replaced, was waiting for him at the lot of the repair shop. Jack climbed into it warily as well as wearily. He felt as if he’d been beaten with a nightstick for the past few days. Had he slept in all that time? He couldn’t remember. He opened a bottle of water, drank it all down in one long swallow. Speaking of essential functions, apart from the crumb bun he’d wolfed down, when had he last eaten? He vaguely recalled scarfing down an Egg McMuffin, but whether that was this morning or yesterday, he couldn’t say.

  It occurred to him that he was hungry. He held the sugar cookies from the All Around Town bakery in his hand, but he didn’t eat them.

  Instead, he methodically checked out the environment. He was looking for another Dark Car. No word yet from Bennett on who had sent out the first one. He didn’t know whether that was good news or bad news. He was almost too tired to care.

  Finally, he admitted to himself that what he really wanted to do was look in the backseat to see if Emma had magically appeared once more. A flicker of his eyes told him that he was alone in the car. He set the sugar cookies on the seat beside him. An offering or an enticement?

  “Emma,” he heard himself say, “are you ever coming back?”

  He was appalled at the sound of his own voice. Frightened, too. What was happening to him? Was he cracking up? Surely he hadn’t seen Emma, surely he hadn’t heard her voice. Then what had he seen, what had he heard? Was it all in his head?

  All of a sudden, these questions were too big for him. He felt that if he sat with them any longer, his head would explode. He started the car, headed for Sharon’s. She lived in a modest house, one of many identical in shape and size, in Arlington Heights. It took him thirty-five minutes to get there. During that time, he had ample opportunity to make sure an Audi or a Mercedes hadn’t taken the place of the gray BMW.

  The lights were on when he pulled into the driveway, and now that he thought about it, he didn’t know whether that was a good or a bad thing. Before he left the car, he checked to see if the cookies had been eaten. They lay against the crease where the seat met the back. They looked sad, forlorn, as if they knew no one would enjoy them. Jack, halfway out of the car, licked his forefinger, picked up a small constellation of crumbs that had formed around the cookies, let them melt on his tongue. He could feel the tears well hotly, so close did he feel to Emma.

  He rang the bell, his heart hammering in his chest. Sharon pulled the door open. The scent of chicken and rice wafted out with her, making his mouth water. She regarded him with an unreadable expression. She wore a skirt that clung to her thighs, a sleeveless blouse that showed off her beautiful golden shoulders. Nina would have appeared pale and wan beside her, anorectic instead of willowy. She said nothing for a moment.

  “Jack, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, sure, it’s just that I can’t remember the last time I had a decent meal.”

  “You were on your own so long, I often wondered why you never learned to cook for yourself.”

  “The tyranny of shopping makes me anxious.”

  She gave him a tentative smile as she moved aside so he could enter.

  Jack closed the door behind him. He took off his overcoat, slung it over the back of the living room sofa. Unlike the old house with its familiar creaking he’d moved into when they split, Sharon preferred a modern place. She had busied herself repainting walls in colors she chose, picking out warm carpets, filling each room not only with furniture but accessories as well—scented candles, a log cabin quilt hanging on the wall, small dishes filled with lacquered shells and gaily striped marbles. No unicorns, thankfully, but a variety of other knickknacks and souvenirs, along with keepsakes and photos of Emma and Sharon as a child in handmade frames. None of this, however, made up for the house’s complete lack of character. Unlike his house, it was a two-story box to live in, nothing more. He found being here disorienting and overwhelming. He’d never get used to Sharon living here, living without him.

  What did he have of Emma’s? He thought of her iPod, pushed to the back of his ATF locker. One night he took it home and couldn’t sleep. Then again, he must have because at one point he started up from a horrific dream of standing paralyzed and mute as Emma’s car hurtled into the tree. He could hear the crack of the wood, the explosion of glass, see the twists of metal spiraling inward. The car door snapped open, and a shape already curled in death shot out, struck him full in the chest. Then he was sitting up in bed, screaming and shivering, sweat pouring off him like rain. He spent what was left of the night commiserating with Nick Carraway in the pages of his beloved, tattered copy of The Great Gatsby, and was never so glad to see the first blush of dawn turn the darkness gold.

  In Sharon’s new digs, he picked up one of the photos of Emma, but the image seemed flat and empty, a shell of what once had been a vibrant and mysterious girl. As for photos of other people in Sharon’s life, he knew there would be none.

  Sharon had no past, and so couldn’t understand what appeal it could possibly hold for Jack. She had parents, but she never saw or spoke to them. A brother, as well, in Rotterdam, where he was an international lawyer. For reasons he’d never been able to fathom, Sharon had cut herself off from her family, her past. When they were dating, she told him that she had no family, but after they were married, he found pho
tos in the trash, spilled out of an old cigar box. Her mother, father, and brother.

  “They’re dead to me,” she’d said when he’d confronted her. She’d never allowed the subject to come up again.

  Did that mean, he often wondered, that Sharon didn’t dream? Because he dreamed only of his past, iterations of it with intended outcomes, or not, bizarre twists and turns that he often remembered after he awoke, and laughed at or puzzled over. It seemed to him that there was a richness in life that came with the years, that only your past could provide. It was unbearable to him to think, as Schopenhauer had written, that no honest man comes to the end of his life wanting to relive it. But it seemed possible to him that Sharon believed just that, that her erasing of her past was an attempt to relive her life.

  He put the photo back, turned away, but his mood didn’t improve. The house’s aggressive homeyness produced a hollowness in the pit of his stomach. As for his heart, it had gone numb the moment she appeared at the door.

  Below her short skirt, Sharon wore little pink ballet slippers with teeny bows and paper-thin soles. They made her movements around the house elegant and silent, even on the hard tile of the kitchen floor. No matter which way you looked at them, her legs were magnificent. Jack tried not to stare, but it was like asking a moth to ignore a flame.

  Sharon opened a glass-fronted cabinet over the sink, stretched up to reach a pair of stemmed glasses. Her figure was highlighted in such a way that Jack felt the need to sit down.

  She uncorked a bottle of red wine, poured. “Fortunately, I made enough food for two.”

  “Uh-huh,” was all he could muster because he’d bitten back one of his acerbic replies.

  She brought the glasses over, handed him one. “What?”

  “What what?”

  She pulled a chair out, sat down at a right angle to him. “I know that look.”

  “What look?” Why all of a sudden did he feel like a felon?

  “The ‘Baby, let’s get it on’ look.”

  “I was just admiring your legs.”

  She got up, took her wineglass to the stove. She stirred a pot, checked the chicken in the oven. “Why didn’t you say that when we were married?” Her voice was more rueful than angry.

  Jack waited until she paused to take a sip of wine before he said, “When we were married, I was embarrassed by how beautiful you are.”

  She spun around. “Come again?”

  “You know how you see a hot movie star—”

  Her face grew dark. “Where do you live, Beverly Hills?”

  “I’m talking about a fantasy figure, Shar. Don’t tell me you don’t have fantasies about—”

  “Clive Owen, if you must know.” She took the bird out, set it aside to allow the juices to settle. “Go on.”

  “Okay, so I’m alone with … Scarlett Johansson.”

  Sharon rolled her eyes. “Dream on, buddy.”

  “I’m alone with her in my mind,” Jack persevered, “but when I try to—you know—nothing happens.”

  She dumped the rice into a serving bowl. “Now that’s just not you.”

  “Right, not when I’m with you. But Scarlett, when I think about her—really think about her—well, it’s too much. I’m wondering why the hell a goddess like that would be with me. Then the fantasy goes up in smoke.”

  She stared intently at the steaming rice. Her cheeks were flushed. After a time, she seemed to find her voice. “You think I’m as beautiful as Scarlett Johansson?”

  If he said yes, what would she do? He didn’t know, so he said nothing, even when she turned her head to look at him. Instead, he got up, rather clumsily, and helped her serve the food.

  They sank back down into their respective chairs. Wordlessly, she handed him the carving utensils and wordlessly he took them, parting the breast from the bony carcass, as he always did. Sharon served them both, first slices of the chicken, then heaping spoonfuls of rice, and broccoli with oil and garlic. They ate in a fog of self-conscious silence, sinking deeper and deeper into their own thoughts.

  Finally, Sharon said, “You’re feeling okay now?”

  Jack nodded. “Fine.”

  “I thought …” She put her fork down. She’d hardly eaten anything. “I thought maybe after the hospital you might call.”

  “I wanted to,” Jack said, not sure that was the truth. “There’s something I want to tell you.”

  Sharon settled in her chair. “All right.”

  “It’s about Emma.”

  She reacted as if he’d shot her. “I don’t—!”

  “Just let me—” He held up his hands. “Please, Shar, just let me say what I have to say.”

  “I’ve heard everything you need to say about Emma.”

  “Not this you haven’t.” He took a deep breath, let it out. He wanted to tell her, and he didn’t. But this time seemed as good as any—better, in fact, than any of their recent meetings. “The fact is—” He seemed to have lost his voice. He cleared his throat. “—I’ve seen Emma.”

  “What!”

  “I’ve seen her a number of times in the past week.” Jack rushed on at breakneck speed, lest he lose his nerve. “The last time she was sitting in the backseat of my car. She said, ‘Dad.’”

  Sharon’s expression told him that he’d made a terrible mistake.

  “Are you insane?” she shouted.

  “I tell you I saw her. I heard her—”

  She jumped up. “Our daughter’s dead, Jack! She’s dead!”

  “I’m not saying—”

  “Oh, you’re despicable!” Her brows knit together ominously. “This is your way of trying to weasel out of your responsibility for Emma’s death.”

  “This isn’t about responsibility, Shar. It’s about trying to understand—”

  “I knew you were desperate to crawl out from under your guilt.”

  Her wildly gesticulating hands knocked over her wineglass. Then she deliberately knocked over his. “I just didn’t know how desperate.”

  Jack was on his feet. “Shar, would you calm down a minute? You’re not listening to me.”

  “Get out of here, Jack!”

  “C’mon, don’t do that.”

  “I said get out!”

  She advanced and he retreated, past the seashells and the colored glass, the postcards Emma had sent to them from school, the photos of her as a child. He scooped up his coat.

  “Sharon, you’ve misunderstood everything.”

  This, of course, was the worst thing he could have said. She flew at him with raised fists, and he backed out the front door so quickly that he stumbled over the top step. She got to slam the door on him once again. Then all the downstairs lights were extinguished and he knew she was sitting, curled up, fists on thighs, sobbing uncontrollably.

  He took a convulsive step up, raised his fist to hammer on the door, but his hand flattened out, palm resting on the door as if by that gesture he could feel her presence. Then he turned, went heavily down the steps, returned to his car.

  29

  Jack thought he was heading home, but instead he found himself pulling into Egon Schiltz’s driveway right behind Candy Schiltz’s Audi A4 Avant wagon. He got out, walked to the front door, pushed the bell. If Sharon wouldn’t talk to him about Emma, maybe Egon would. Jack checked his watch. It was late enough that he was sure to be home by now.

  Schiltz lived in the Olde Sleepy Hollow area of Falls Church. His house was a neat two-story colonial the family had lived in for decades. Schiltz had paid just north of $100,000 for it. Back in the day, that wasn’t exactly cheap, but these days it was worth conservatively fifteen times that.

  Molly came to the door, gave an excited shriek as he whirled her up and around.

  “Molly Maria Schiltz, what is going on!”

  Candy came bursting into the entryway, but as soon as she saw Jack, the look of concern on her face changed to a broad smile.

  “Jack McClure, well, it’s been too long!” she said with genuine pleasure.<
br />
  He kissed her on the cheek as Taffy, their Irish setter, came bounding in, tongue lolling, tail wagging furiously.

  “We’ve finished dinner,” Candy said, “but there’s plenty of leftovers.”

  “I just ate, thanks,” Jack said.

  While he and Candy went into the family room, Molly trooped upstairs to do her homework.

  “I have cherry pie,” Candy said with a twinkle in her eye. “Your favorite, if memory serves.”

  Jack laughed despite his black mood. “Nothing wrong with your memory.”

  Seeing no way out, he allowed her to bustle around the open kitchen, Taffy happily trotting at her heels. She was a statuesque woman with ash-blond hair and a wide, open face. In her youth, she’d been a real beauty. Now, in later middle age, she possessed a different kind of beauty, as well as an enviable serenity. She cut a slice of pie as generous as her figure, took a bowl of homemade whipped cream out of the refrigerator, piled on a huge dollop.

  “Milk or coffee?” she said as she plunked the plate and fork down on the pass-through. Taffy came around, sat on her haunches, her long, clever face turned up to Jack.

  “Coffee, please.” Jack rubbed Taffy’s forehead with his knuckles, and the dog growled in pleasure. He picked up the fork. “How many people is this portion supposed to feed?”

  Candy, pouring his coffee into a mug she herself had made in pottery class, giggled. “I can’t help it if I still consider you a growing boy, Jack.” She padded over with the mug. She remembered he liked his coffee straight. “Anyway, you’re looking far too gaunt to suit me.” She put a hand over his briefly. “Are you getting along all right?”

  Jack nodded. “I’m doing fine.”

  Candy’s expression indicated she didn’t believe him. “You should come over here more often. Egon misses you.” She indicated with her head. “So does Good Golly Miss Molly.”