Into the Inferno - Earl Emerson [131]
“Listen,” Stephanie said. “I’ll leave my cell phone on. If you come up with something, call.”
“Oh, you bet I will, Dr. Riggs. I’m not giving up on this. No way I’m giving up on this.”
After she hung up, Stephanie and I looked at each other. I said, “A young woman investigating the syndrome dies in a house fire in Tennessee. Another one dies here. There’s an explosion in Tennessee. There’s another one here. Somebody was in both places.”
“Orchestrating it.”
“Daddy? Who died?”
“What?” Allyson had asked the question and Allyson wasn’t easy to fool.
“You said a woman died here.”
“Nobody you know.”
“She died in our fire, didn’t she?”
“Yes, dear.”
Stephanie and I finished the conversation in the other room. “If it wasn’t JCP, Inc., who was it?” I said. “How many possibilities are there? There is only one other company involved in both incidents. You rule out the possibilities one by one, and then, no matter how unlikely, you’re left with the culprit. Those are Donovan’s words.”
“I don’t want to believe my aunt was the cause of my sister’s problems. I can’t believe that. Besides, Canyon View was only shipping books in Holly’s truck. How could books have caused this?”
“The manifest said it was books. Maybe it wasn’t. After all, books aren’t exactly their business.”
“That’s true, but I assumed they were industrial manuals or research textbooks or something.”
“So did I. Achara wanted to meet with me. She wanted to tell me something about those numbers she gave me. I think the main purpose of getting rid of her was so we would not have that meeting.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I’m going to wait until it gets dark.”
Stephanie looked at me for a long moment. “That cuts your time down even more.”
“My time’s been running out all week. I’m getting used to it.”
At dinner downstairs, Britney said, “This place sure is ’spensive.”
“What makes you think that, honey?” Stephanie asked.
“The man in the lobby said it was so ’spensive they were billing him twenty-five cents every time he cut a fart.” We laughed so hard the table rocked, and then one of the girls farted and we really went to pieces.
After dinner we went upstairs so the girls could check out the TV fare, but they fell asleep before we got through the schedule. It was seven-thirty.
Stephanie left quietly while I tugged off their shoes and tucked them in, kissing them good night. Or maybe it was good-bye. I knew Stephanie had done me a favor leaving me alone with them, that she’d wanted desperately to stay and be part of my final farewell.
Later, we made love one last time. It was as gentle as a whisper at a wedding.
And then I was asleep.
I’d had a lot of stress along with a series of long days. Or maybe it was a guy thing. You had sex. You nodded off. Or . . .
Maybe my time was up.
55. HERE’S THE KICKER
Everything appeared to be shaking.
It took a few moments to realize it wasn’t an earthquake, that somebody was jiggling the bed. My ears were ringing or I would have identified the sound sooner. A woman crying.
I was on my back, the blankets tight around me, as if I’d been tucked in by a mortician. When I lifted my head ever so slightly, I spotted our baby-sitter, Morgan Neumann, hands clasped in front of her, standing at the foot of the bed, tears staining her pale cheeks. Stephanie was beside me, one arm thrown across my chest as if playing out an Elizabethan melodrama.
When I reached out and touched her hair, Stephanie stopped crying and crawled higher on the bed, kissing my cheek repeatedly. Still sniffling, she laid her head on my shoulder.
“Oh, God. I tried so hard to wake you. I even stuck a pin in you. I’m sorry.”
“You can take it out now.”
“It was just a little prick.”
“Just like me.”
“Don’t joke around, Jim. I know ten or fifteen more hours aren’t all that much, but I was counting on every one of them.”
I might have climbed out of bed, but I was naked and Morgan was watching. “Hey, Morgan. What are you doing here?”
Wiping her wet cheeks with the sleeve of her shirt, she said, “I was going