Part 37 (1/2)
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, G.o.d. 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 p.r.i.c.k.”
”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 s.h.i.+rt, she said, ”I was going to sit with the girls.”
”Sit with the girls? Where were you going, Steph?”
”Morgan, would you mind waiting in the girls' room?” After Morgan was gone, Stephanie said, ”I'm going to Canyon View.”
”Alone?”
”I thought you were . . .” She kissed me. ”I talked to a librarian at the North Bend Library who said Achara had been there until closing. Know what she was doing?”
”Tell me.”
”Sitting in front of that big wall of picture windows. Sitting and staring at the mountain for hours. Does that sound like a woman researching a problem?”
”That sounds like a woman trying to make a decision.”
”That's exactly what I thought. You don't think she took the gasoline to your house and torched the place, do you?”
”I think she was deciding whether or not to betray her employer. Donovan must have caught wind of her intentions. He He drove her to the gas station, gave her some song and dance about needing the gasoline can filled up, then took her out to my house and did whatever he had to do to make it happen. Knocked her out. Strangled her. Dragged her inside. Poured gas all over. Remember how surprised Donovan was when he saw us last night? He thought he killed us-or me at least-in that fire.” drove her to the gas station, gave her some song and dance about needing the gasoline can filled up, then took her out to my house and did whatever he had to do to make it happen. Knocked her out. Strangled her. Dragged her inside. Poured gas all over. Remember how surprised Donovan was when he saw us last night? He thought he killed us-or me at least-in that fire.”
”Then he's the one who left the note on the door of the fire station. He had some woman call the fire investigators and leave those messages.”
”That's what I think,” I said.
”I can't believe he would do that. I can't believe my aunt had anything to do with this.”
”Maybe she doesn't know about it. You said she hasn't been in charge that long.”
”When you met my aunt at Tacoma General, did you tell her about the syndrome, that there were other people who had it in addition to Holly?”
”I told her there were people in North Bend going down. She could have figured out the rest-”
”-If she already knew about the syndrome and what causes it.”
I threw the covers off and swung my feet over the side of the bed. ”I'm going. You stay here.”
”You don't know what to look for.”
”You stay here with-”
”You want to get stubborn? You've come to the factory. There is no possible scenario where I stay.”
”Why not?”
”For one thing . . . I already paid the baby-sitter.”
We looked at each other for half a minute. I could love this woman like I'd never loved any woman. I could love her until we were both a hundred and five. I could love her until the earth crumbled. ”At the first sign of trouble, I want you out of there.”
”I never bail out. It's my trademark.”
”At the first sign of trouble. That's an order. As the designated guardian of my children.”
”Okay. Yes, sir. You feel strong enough to do this?”
”I'll make it.”
56. EXCEPT FOR BURGLARS AND LOCKSMITHS.
After ten minutes of driving around the wooded neighborhood, we ascertained that Canyon View was locked but empty, found a strip mall ab.u.t.ting the back of the property, parked the Pontiac behind a row of buildings, s.h.i.+mmied up a rockery, and climbed a low fence. Below us was the roof of the strip mall, which consisted of ten or twelve single-story occupancies fronting a busy thoroughfare.
Stephanie produced a five-battery flashlight and other paraphernalia from a small gray bag. ”Where'd you get all that stuff?” I said.
”I went to a store down the street from the hotel while you were sleeping.”
”A burglar store?”
”Yeah.”
Blundering through the darkness, we found a culvert with a small stream trickling along the bottom of it, then a natural embankment at the top of which was a Cyclone fence with a sign, red lettering on a white background: PRIVATE PROPERTY-KEEP OUT-VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED PRIVATE PROPERTY-KEEP OUT-VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED. The fence was far enough from the road that we could no longer hear the occasional car, nor see the glow of lights from the auto dealers.h.i.+p across the street.
Stephanie had brought latex gloves for both of us, along with an a.s.sortment of tools: a small pry bar, flashlight, wire cutters, duct tape, and a screwdriver. I climbed the fence and used the wire cutters to sever the razor wire running along the top, cutting my thumb in the process.
Managing to get both of us over the fence and onto the Canyon View campus without further bloodshed, we worked our way through the trees and past the elephant-sized rhododendrons. I think at that point we both felt a little like Alice in Wonderland. What we were attempting was so far from our normal lives, it didn't seem real. But then, nothing seemed real these days.
We came to the smaller building first, two dark stories with a small loading dock on one side, a s.h.i.+pping and receiving facility.
The next building was the size of a small college campus administration building. All the lower windows were wired for security. Stephanie tried one of the back doors while I tromped through the flower bed along the wall of the building and searched for an unsecured window.
I couldn't shake the feeling the Redmond police were about to come barreling around the corner and arrest us.
If there was one thing I knew, it was breaking into buildings. Except for burglars and locksmiths, firefighters broke into buildings more often than anybody. An ordinary residence had a door most firefighters could kick in with their boot or, at the least, one they could jimmy with a Halligan tool. You could also take an ax and knock off the lock, remove the guts, and kick in the door. We didn't have a Halligan tool or an ax, and the doors on this building were built to withstand an atomic blast. Even if they weren't, there would be a security system in place that would trigger an alarm if we broke in.
I sat on a small cookie-cutter concrete curb that ran around a flower bed to think things out. After a while, I heard some clicking. I turned around and found Stephanie fumbling with the door. ”What are you doing?”