First Daughter - Eric van Lustbader [107]
Jack sat stunned, trying to regain his equilibrium as past and present rushed headlong at each other.
At last, he roused himself. "I know this place," he said as they sat in the car where they'd parked down the block. "I'll take the back, you take the front."
They synchronized their watches. It was dusk, the light grimly fading from the sky as if whisked away by a sooty broom. The air was cold but still. Dampness lay on the ground like trash.
"Give me ninety seconds from the time we split up to get into position," he continued, "okay?"
Nina nodded and they both got out of the car. Together, they glanced at their watches as they parted company on the pavement. Jack counted to himself as he made his way down the side of the house, past a couple of garbage cans on his right, a chain-link fence on his left. Jack thought of Zilla, the huge German shepherd Gus treated so well.
He arrived at the back door with sixteen seconds to spare. On his way, he'd passed three windows. Two were heavily curtained, making it impossible to see in. The third looked past lacy curtains to a kitchen, yellow as butter. It was deserted.
Inserting a pair of hooked picks into the lock, he manipulated them so that they simulated the turn of the proper key. The door popped open at almost the same time Nina was knocking on the front door. Glock drawn, Jack went from room to room, listened for any human sounds in between Nina's insistent knocking. It was dim, gloomy, full of bad memories that seemed to vibrate through the floorboards. In the hallway, he paused at the line of photos. His hair stood on end—they were all of Alli Carson. They had the telltale flatness associated with a long telephoto lens. Then his breath caught in his throat, for there in the middle was a photo of Alli and Emma walking together on the Langley Fields campus. As he stared at the two girls, Emma's image seemed to flicker, grow wavy, and move toward him. He could swear she knew he was here; he thought the smile on her face was for him.
As if from the wrong end of an amplifier, he heard her call to him. He wanted to answer her, but the fear of Kray/Whitman being in the house kept him silent.
Nina's renewed banging on the front door caused him to jump, but that was hardly the source of his fright. He passed into the foyer, reached out and opened the door to let her in. A quick negative shake of his head let her know he hadn't found anyone, but he led her silently to the photos in the hallway.
With his left hand, he indicated that she should check the second floor. He went room by room: the cobwebby basement, smelling of raw concrete and damp, the living room with its astounding volcanoes of books, magazines, papers of all kinds. The bathroom was clear, as was the kitchen. It was curious, though. The living room and foyer were just as he remembered them, cluttered and musty, but the kitchen and bathroom were neat and spotless, shining like a scientist's laboratory. It was as if two completely different people inhabited the same place: the ghost of the Marmoset and Kray/Whitman.
To the left, he found a closed door. Trying the knob, he ascertained that it was locked. His picks were of no help here. The lock was of a kind he hadn't encountered before. He stood back, aimed, then shielded his eyes as he fired the Glock at it. The resulting percussion brought Nina at a dead run.
He kicked in the door, found a room with only a huge painted wood chair. At one time, probably when the Marmoset had lived here, the room had had a window. Since then it had been bricked up and painted over. It reeked sourly of sweat, fear, and human excrement.
The two of them returned to the hallway, went down it until they found themselves back in the cheerful kitchen.
"Check everything," Jack said.
They opened closets, drawers, cabinets. All the utensils, bottles, cans, mops, brooms, dustpans were arranged in order of utility and size. The oven was empty inside. Nina pulled open