Hard news - Jeffery Deaver [25]
“I can’t ask her. I’d be embarrassed.”
“She’s what? About three? She’s probably toilet-trained. If not, you should start pretty soon.”
“Me? No way. Forget about it.”
“Rune, kids are wonderful. When you and Adam and I go out we have a great time.”
“But he’s your son. That’s different. I don’t want one of my own. I’m too young to be a mother. My life is over with already.”
“It’s only temporary, isn’t it?”
“That’s the part I’m not too sure about.” Rune looked toward Courtney’s room. Her voice was panicky when she said, “You think she drinks too much juice?”
“Rune.”
“She drinks a lot of juice.”
“You should worry a lot less.”
“Sam, I can’t have a kid with me when I interview people. What am I—?”
“I’m going to give you the name of the day-care center Cheryl and I used to take Adam to. It’s a good place. And some of the women there work nights as baby-sitters.”
“Yeah?”
“Look at the bright side: You didn’t have to go through labor.”
Rune sat close to him and laid her head on his chest. “Why do I get myself into things like this?”
“She’s a sweet little girl.”
Rune put her arms around him. “They’re all sweet when they’re asleep. The thing is they wake up after a while.”
He began rubbing her shoulders.
“That’s nice.”
“Yeah,” he said, “it is.”
He rubbed for five minutes, his strong fingers working down her spine. She moaned. Then he untucked her T-shirt and began working his way up, under the cloth.
“That’s nicer,” she said and rolled over on her back.
He kissed her forehead. She kissed his mouth, feeling the tickle of the moustache. It was a sensation she’d gotten used to, one she liked a lot.
Healy kissed her back. His hand, still inside her T-shirt, worked its way up. He disarmed bombs; he had a very smooth touch.
“Rune!” Courtney shouted in a shrill voice.
They both jumped.
“Read me a story, Rune!”
Her hands covered her face. “Jesus, Sam, what’m I going to do?”
chapter 9
THE TRAIN UP TO HARRISON, NEW YORK, LEFT ON TIME and sailed out of the tunnel under Park Avenue, rising up on the elevated tracks like an old airplane slowly gaining altitude. Rune’s head swiveled as she watched the redbrick projects and clusters of young men on the street. No one wore colorful clothing; it was all gray and brown. A woman pushed a grocery cart filled with rags. Two men stood over the open hood of a beige sedan, hands on their wide hips, and seemed to be confirming a terminal diagnosis.
The train sped north through Harlem and the scenes flipped past more quickly. Rune, leaning forward, climbing onto her knees, felt the lurch as the wheels danced sideways like a bullfighter’s hips and they crossed the Harlem River Bridge. She waved to passengers on a Day-liner tour boat as they looked up at the bridge. No one noticed her.
Then they were in the Bronx—passing plumbing supply houses and lumberyards and, in the distance, abandoned apartments and warehouses. Daylight showed through the upper-story windows.
You wake up in the morning and you think…
Rune tried to doze. But she kept seeing the tape of Boggs’s face, broken into scan lines and each scan line a thousand pixels of red, blue and green dots.
… Hell, I’m still here.
• • •
THE WAY THEIR EYES LOOKED AT HER WAS WEIRD.
She’d figured the prisoners would lay a lot of crap on her—catcalls or whoops of “Yo, honey,” or long slimy stares.
But nope. They looked at her the way assembly line workers would glance at a plant visitor, someone walking timidly between tall machines, careful not to get grease on her good shoes. They looked, they ignored, they went back to mopping floors or talking to buddies and visitors or not doing much of anything.
The warden’s office had checked her press credentials and guards had searched her bag and the camera case. She was then escorted into the visitors’ area by a tall guard—a handsome black man with a moustache that looked like it was drawn above his lip in mascara. Visitors and inmates at the state prison in Harrison were separated by thick glass partitions and talked to each other on old, heavy black telephones.
Rune stood