Bodily Harm: A Novel
: Chapter 5

MADISON PARK

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

Malcolm Fitzgerald nodded to the security guard in the brick booth, and the crossbar raised, allowing his Bentley access into the gated community. Located just a few miles east of downtown Seattle, the homes in the development started at just over $2 million, even in the still depressed housing market. For that price you received gated entrances with security guards at two locations, a private golf course, pristine streets swept regularly, manicured lawns and yards, and a whole host of regulations about what you could and could not do with your property. No basketball hoops at the end of driveways or mounted over garage doors. No bikes left forgotten on front lawns. No cars parked in the street. Garden lights were to be subtle, like the light from the streetlamps, evenly spaced to account for safety, and tempered so as not to destroy the ambiance.

Despite the turbulence at work, Fitzgerald had left the office early, which for him meant while it was still light out. He turned into the driveway of his two-story brick house. With white wood trim, dormers on the roof, and a burgundy-red front door, he thought it looked like a fraternity house on Greek Row. It was certainly big enough to house a fraternity. Their real estate agent had told them not to concern themselves with the front of the houses she showed them, rationalizing that they would only see it coming and going. Fitzgerald thought the woman had a valid point, but his wife had not been so easily placated.

He parked in the garage and listened to the automatic door rattle closed, the noise probably a violation of some homeowner regulation. The short porte cochere led to the mud- room, where he replaced one of his daughter’s stray shoes next to the match on the built-in cubbyhole professionally labeled ADRIENNE’S SCHOOL SHOES. Fitzgerald couldn’t decide what was worse, the fact that his wife was anal enough to separate the shoes into categories, or had enough free time to make the labels. Then again, time was a luxury he could afford for her, along with the three-million-dollar home and the $55,000 Mercedes station wagon she needed to cart the girls to and from private school, piano lessons, ballet, and the seemingly never-ending soccer practices.

Footsteps sounded in the kitchen. Fitzgerald hid behind the doorjamb. As Sarah slid around the corner, her socks gliding over the freshly waxed floor, he surprised her from behind.

“Boo!”

She screamed and jumped.

Adrienne followed a split second behind her sister, yelling. “You cheated.”

“No I didn’t.”

“You didn’t say ‘go.’”

“I said three.”

“You still have to say go.”

“Hey, hey, hey.” Fitzgerald stepped between them, hugging them both. “Why don’t we just call it a tie?”

“No way,” Sarah said. “She always cries when I win.”

“That’s because you cheat.”

“All right,” Fitzgerald said, “no more calling anyone a cheater.”

He hugged them again, and they followed him through the kitchen into the living room, where Adrienne sat quickly at the piano bench.

“Want to hear my recital piece?”

Before he could answer she began to play. Growling like a monster, Fitzgerald chased Sarah from the room and down the hall where she ran past her mother, who stood outside the master bedroom and stepped into his path. “Hold it, Frankenstein.” She pointed to her lips. “Plant one.”

Fitzgerald did, and she followed him into a bedroom as big as a hotel suite.

“It’s after nine,” Erin said to Sarah, who had hidden beneath the bed covers. “You should be in your own bed with lights out.”

The covers muffled her response. “I heard the garage door.”

“I’ll call someone to get it fixed. I’m afraid it might disturb the neighbors,” Erin said.

Fitzgerald shook his head. “It’s a garage door. Garage doors make noise, just like kids make noise. Are they going to outlaw kids too?”

“Don’t start again.” She pulled down the covers on the bed, exposing Sarah. “To bed,” she said, leaving the room. Fitzgerald heard her issue the same orders to Adrienne. He carried Sarah to her room and tucked her in, then returned and pulled off his tie. He threw his shirt in the basket labeled DRY CLEANING, kicked off his shoes, and left them there, a tempered protest against the cubby in his walk-in closet labeled WORK SHOES.

Erin walked back in. “You get them riled up and I’m the one who has to settle them down again. Did you eat? I saved you a plate.”

“I grabbed something.”

“I heard about Galaxy on the six o’clock news. How bad is the fallout?”

He shrugged. “Tepid. There’s still some shareholders pushing for my head, but the board isn’t too concerned, with the stock climbing.”

“Anyone pushing to take the offer?”

Fitzgerald shook his head. “Nobody wants to be the next Larry Reiner.”

Everyone in the toy business knew the story of Larry Reiner, the twenty-nine-year-old inventor of G.I. Joe, who had rejected a one percent royalty payment on every sale of the toy and taken his agent’s recommendation to split a $100,000 one-time payment. Over the next forty years Reiner had lost an estimated $40 million in income.

Erin sat on the edge of the bed. “Do you really think Metamorphis could be like that?”

Fitzgerald shrugged. “It’s always a gamble, but yeah, I do.”

The tone of her voice changed. “Do you think it’s worth it?”

“What?”

“The gamble.”

Thirty-five-million dollars’ worth of worry lines creased her forehead, which was the amount Fitzgerald stood to make if he sold his stock when it was riding high. Fitzgerald couldn’t do that to Sebastian Kendall, or to himself. His ego wouldn’t allow him to concede defeat.

“Bolelli has a track record for purging the fat from companies she acquires. She’ll fire all of Kendall’s executives, consolidate manufacturing, and lay off a majority of Kendall’s workforce.”

And then what would he do, stare at the front of his house all day?

“I’m just saying nobody wants to be the next Edward John Smith either,” she said, referring to the captain of the Titanic.

HIGHLINE COMMUNITY HOSPITAL

BURIEN, WASHINGTON

CHARLES JENKINS HAD taken the first flight home after Sloane’s secretary, Carolyn, called to deliver the news. When his plane landed at Seattle-Tacoma Airport, Jenkins and Alex had driven straight to the hospital and he had maintained a vigil there ever since. For the first four days Sloane had lain in a drug-induced coma intended to limit his pain and prevent him from thrashing about in bed, possibly pulling out the myriad of tubes stuck in his body. Still, Jenkins had refused to leave. When visiting hours ended he took a blanket to the waiting room. The hospital staff gave him a hard time; hospital rules only allowed relatives to spend the night. Jenkins told them he and Sloane were brothers. Since he was black he didn’t expect to convince them, but he hoped to emphasize the strength of the bond between the two men, as well as his conviction to stay. The staff relented. Alex had brought him clothes, food, and reading material, unable to convince him to leave even to take a walk.

“I need to be the one,” he had told her. “I don’t want him to hear it from anyone else.”

When the doctor finally removed the breathing tube, Sloane choked uttering his first word.

“Tina?”

Jenkins shut his eyes, unable to hold back the tears that spilled down his face. “I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “I’m so sorry.”

The words had hit Sloane like the blows of a jackhammer. His chest shuddered, then his back arched, his body becoming rigid as a plank. The doctors and nurses fought to keep him from tearing the IVs from his arms and rupturing the bandages covering his shoulder and leg wounds, but they could not prevent the primal scream of agony and despair that ripped from his soul and rumbled down the hallways. Only a sedative silenced him.

For the next three weeks, Jenkins remained in the chair beside the bed; Tina’s parents had flown to Seattle and taken Jake back to San Francisco with them, along with their daughter’s ashes for burial. Jenkins didn’t try to talk to Sloane, who spent most of his time staring out the window in his own induced coma, numb to the world and everyone in it. When the doctors and nurses asked Sloane questions, he did not answer them. When they put food in front of him, he did not touch it.

According to the doctors, the gunshot wound to Sloane’s thigh had broken his femur and caused soft tissue damage to his muscles, but it had missed his femoral vessel. Had it not, Sloane would likely have bled to death, or lost his leg. Surgery on the leg indicated some neurological loss in his foot that the doctors said could cause him to walk with a limp the rest of his life. The bullet to his shoulder had fractured his clavicle, but as with the shot to his leg, the doctor explained that it had missed the subclavian artery, which could have killed him. It had nicked a lung, collapsing it, and the doctors were concerned about pneumonia, particularly if Sloane did not get up and start walking soon.

His surgeon told Sloane he was lucky to be alive.

Jenkins knew Sloane didn’t feel that way.

“DO YOU NEED anything for the pain?”

Sloane opened his eyes and looked to his friend, who remained in the chair by the bed. He shook his head. There was no point; his physical pain paled in comparison to the ache in his heart. Sloane had never felt such anguish—a sharp pain that caused him to double over in agony with each recollection, each memory.

• • •

THE REAL ESTATE agent had called early on a Saturday morning.

“I have the house for you,” she had said.

Sloane was pessimistic. He had told the woman he wanted to live on the water, as he had in Pacifica, where he found the sound of the waves comforting. The agent had interpreted that desire to mean Sloane wanted one of the luxurious homes on Lake Washington, along with their matching price tags and her commission. But that was not what he and Tina had been looking for, though neither could express exactly what it was they sought.

“The owner just passed away,” the agent explained as they descended the winding road into Three Tree Point. “He and his wife raised their family here. They lived in the home for fifty-two years.”

When they turned the corner she stopped the car so they could gaze at the back of the white clapboard home. It had not been spruced up to sell. It needed a paint job and a new roof. Sloane looked to Tina and could tell she too had a good feeling. That feeling increased when the agent unlocked the door and they stepped inside. This was not a house that came ready made. It was not a monument to wealth and success. It had been functional, serving a purpose, a home for a family that had watched television together and ate meals at the dining room table. The children had slept in the rooms upstairs and bounded down the stairs in their socks and pajamas. They had fought and played and left nicks and scars on the hardwood floors and walls. One of the windows in the kitchen had been pierced by an errant BB, and several tiles on the counter had cracked.

Sloane knew instantly this was what he wanted and why the others had not been suitable. He didn’t want a house. He wanted a home.

Tina stood on the enclosed porch, looking out the plate glass windows at the Puget Sound. Jake had already rushed to the water’s edge, skipping stones across the surface.

When Sloane joined her she rested her head on his shoulder.

“I think we’re home,” she had said.

SLOANE HAD NOT seen or spoken with Jake since the night of the shootings. When he tried to call, Bill Larsen told him Jake was seeing a child psychiatrist to deal with his trauma and that the psychiatrist had recommended against Sloane and Jake speaking. Then he hung up. Subsequent attempts by Sloane had been no less productive, and the Larsens had stopped answering the phone. Sloane was in no condition, physically or geographically, to force the issue. He missed Jake terribly, but that battle would come soon enough. He could only imagine what the Larsens had told Jake.

Jenkins walked into the room carrying a white bag and a cup of coffee in one hand and a stack of cards in the other. “How’re you feeling?”

Sloane shrugged.

“I brought you a bagel.” He held out the bag, but when Sloane did not take it Jenkins set it on the tray beside the bed.

“What did the doctor say?”

Sloane had asked Jenkins to replace out when he could leave the hospital. His leg was no longer in a cast and they had him up doing physical therapy. He suffered through it because he knew it was the only way they would consent to release him.

“A few more days.” Jenkins sat and sipped his coffee. “People are asking about a service.”

“I’ll hold a service when I get my son back. I’m not doing it without Jake. Did you call the cemetery?”

Jenkins nodded. “It takes about six weeks.”

Tina had wanted to redo the kitchen countertops in a blue marble, but that would never happen. Sloane had been given no say in the Larsens holding his wife’s funeral and burying her ashes, but he would not allow them to choose her headstone. He wanted something that would stand out from the traditional gray and black, as Tina had stood out in life. He wanted her to have her blue marble. Jenkins had handled the arrangements.

Jenkins handed him the stack of sympathy cards. Sloane put them on the windowsill with the other unopened envelopes. “There’s one more card,” he said. Sloane looked, but Jenkins’s hands were empty. “He wanted to deliver it in person.”

Sloane shook his head, uninterested in visitors, but Jenkins was already moving toward the hospital room door. Before Sloane could protest further, Jenkins had departed and Detective Tom Molia stepped into the room.

Sloane smiled at the familiar face. Tears welled in his eyes. “Tom.”

Molia walked in and handed Sloane a card, then bent and hugged him. Four years earlier the West Virginia police detective had helped Sloane track down the men responsible for killing his mother, but not before they had endured an ordeal together. The experience had bonded them, and the two men had stayed in contact despite living on opposite sides of the country. Sloane still kept the photograph of Molia’s green Chevy—on which the detective had written Does not have air-conditioning—beneath a magnet on his refrigerator door.

Molia did not try to hide his emotions. Tears rolled down his cheeks. “You know us Italians,” he said stepping back. “We’re criers.”

“How did you get here?” Sloane asked, knowing that Molia feared flying.

“I drove. It was time to come out and spend some time with my mother in Oakland,” he said. “I brought Maggie and the kids with me.”

“You drove the Chevy?”

“In this heat, without air-conditioning, are you kidding? Maggie would divorce me.”

The detective pulled up a chair and sat. “I heard about it on the news and called. Charlie filled me in. I thought I’d give you some time. I’m so sorry, David. I’m so damn sorry.”

Sloane nodded. What was there to say?

“I ran some checks through the normal channels and asked a friend at the FBI for a favor, but I didn’t replace anything useful. Without a name or a fingerprint, something . . .”

Sloane shook his head. “I appreciate the effort.”

“I also ran a check on the company, Kendall Toys, and the guy, Malcolm Fitzgerald. Both came up clean too. Not even the hint of cheating on their taxes. And I put out an APB for Kyle Horgan, but so far nothing.”

Charles Jenkins’s research had also revealed nothing on Horgan’s whereabouts. There was no activity on his bank account and no record of a credit card. Horgan had never gone back to his apartment and Sloane had to presume that the young man was dead, his body someplace where it would never be found.

“I just wish I had something for you,” Molia said.

The two men spent an hour together then Molia stood. “I better let you get some rest,” he said. “If there’s anything I can do, you call me, you understand.”

“I know. Thanks, Tom. It means a lot to me.”

“You just promise me one thing. When you do replace this guy, I want to be there.”

SLOANE SLEPT MUCH of the afternoon, but it had been fitful, filled with images of Tina in a cream-colored wedding dress, standing on the lawn at Three Tree Point. She slipped the gold ring onto Sloane’s finger, her face radiant, her eyes focused only on him as the minister asked her to repeat her wedding vows. But as she started to speak blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, a small dribble that increased in volume until she began to choke on her words and blood spewed down her chin and the front of her dress. Sloane awoke in a start, gasping, his hospital gown drenched in sweat.

Charles Jenkins sat in the chair beside the bed, reading glasses on the bridge of his nose and a book in his lap but his focus was on Sloane. Sloane took a moment to catch his breath.

“The detectives are back,” Jenkins said. “The doctor told them you could talk if you feel up to it. I’ve already sent them away a few times. This time they decided to wait.”

Sloane knew he could not put off the meeting forever. “Let’s get it over with.”

When Jenkins returned, a man and a woman dressed in suits followed him. The man, somewhat overweight, introduced himself as Detective Spinelli. The woman was his partner, Detective Adams.

Spinelli thanked Sloane for taking the time to talk to them and offered his condolences. He spoke from behind a neatly trimmed mustache. Heavy, with jowls, he reminded Sloane of a walrus.

The detective opened an envelope and handed Sloane black-and-white photographs. When he considered them, Sloane felt an adrenaline rush that caused his jaws to clench. Though the images were grainy, the face was clear enough, one that Sloane would never forget.

“You recognize him?” Spinelli asked.

Sloane put the first picture behind the stack and went through the others, studying the face, trying to commit each distinct feature to memory.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s the guy.”

“You’re sure, take your time.”

“I don’t have to take my time, detective. That’s him. Who is he?”

“We don’t know.” Spinelli reached for the photographs.

Sloane put a hand to his throat. “Could I have a glass of water?”

Spinelli turned and picked up a plastic pitcher from the tray beside the bed and motioned to Adams to grab him a cup from the counter. She was a good foot shorter than her partner and further dwarfed by Jenkins. Spinelli filled the cup and handed it to Sloane, who exchanged it for the envelope of photographs.

“Where did you get the photographs?” Sloane asked.

“Do you know a Kyle Horgan, Mr. Sloane?”

The question caught Sloane off guard. “Not personally. He came to my office building one morning but I didn’t have time to talk to him. Why?”

“Was that the only time you met him?”

“I didn’t meet with him. I had just finished a trial in superior court and I was hurrying because the clerk called to say the jury was back. Judge Rudolph isn’t the patient type.”

The two detectives shared a look and a grin. “We’ve been there. Rudolph used to be on the criminal calendar. He’s a ballbuster for punctuality. You’d never met Mr. Horgan before he came to your building?”

“No.”

“Did you ever see or talk to him again?”

Sloane suspected where the conversation was headed, and it raised another question. “Are you investigating my wife’s murder?”

Spinelli shook his head. “No, Mr. Sloane, that’s being handled by the King County Sheriff’s Office.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We’re with the Seattle Police Department. Could you answer my question?”

“No, I never saw him again. But I did go to his apartment building in Pioneer Square.” Sloane wanted to ask if they had found Horgan’s body somewhere, but that would only make the detectives question why Sloane thought Horgan could have been the subject of foul play.

“Why did you go to his apartment?”

“When he came to see me, Mr. Horgan said that a doctor I had just tried the case against wasn’t responsible for the death of a young boy. He said he was.”

“He meaning Horgan?”

“That’s right.”

“So you did talk to him.”

“That was the extent of our conversation.”

“What did you take that to mean?”

“No idea. I guess I initially thought he was crazy.”

“So why then go to his apartment?”

Sloane took a moment. “Because he said it with such conviction and it was such a random comment for someone to make that I thought it best to give him a chance to explain himself.”

“But he wasn’t there.”

“No, he wasn’t.”

“Did you speak to anyone else while you were there?”

“The building manager.”

“What did he tell you?”

“He said he hadn’t seen Mr. Horgan in a week.”

“How long did you and the manager talk?”

“Not long. A few minutes. Listen, detective, what is it you want to know?” Sloane knew the connection but did his best to play it out. “Where did you get the photographs and what relationship does that man have to Kyle Horgan?”

“The photographs were taken from a hidden video camera at Mr. Horgan’s apartment building. It seems the owner was having trouble with burglaries, people stealing tenant mail. He installed the camera about a year ago. You were also on the tape.”

Spinelli did not tell Sloane they thought the man was responsible for the building manager’s death but Sloane already knew that.

“I don’t understand. What was he doing at the building?”

“We don’t know. We thought you might.”

Sloane shook his head.

“You don’t know anything more about him, what business he might have had at that building?”

Sloane shook his head. “What did Mr. Horgan say?”

“We don’t know. We haven’t found him yet.”

“He’s missing?”

“Appears that way.”

“Do you know anything more about this man, his name, anything?”

Sloane knew the detectives could run a person’s name, fingerprints, DNA, or picture through a crime lab to determine whether there was any match with records stored in the system. He also knew from his conversation with Tom Molia that the man who killed Tina was not in that system, further confirming the man was a professional killer, not a random criminal.

“Not yet,” Spinnelli said. “But we’ll keep you posted.”

Spinelli handed Sloane a business card. “If you think of anything else . . .”

Sloane took the card and waited until the two detectives had excused themselves and exited the room. Then he sat up and disconnected the IV drip from his arm.

“What are you doing?” Jenkins asked.

“Getting out of here.”

“The doctor won’t release you. He said another few days.”

Sloane pulled out the photograph from beneath the covers, the one he had slipped there when the detective turned to get him a glass of water. Part of his sense of helplessness had been not knowing who the man was, or having any way to replace out. Now they had a chance, and that was all the motivation he needed to get better.

He handed Jenkins the photograph. “Find him for me, Charlie, whatever it takes.”

“Why not let the police know? Tell them what you know; maybe they can replace him.”

Sloane pulled the clear tape off his arm. “He’s not in their system or they wouldn’t have been here asking me questions. If I tell them I think there’s a connection between this man and Horgan and Fitzgerald, they’ll question Fitzgerald, and that will only make him more guarded before I can get to him. I want Fitzgerald to think he got away with this. I want him to make a mistake.” Sloane pointed to the photograph. “Just like he made a mistake. And I’m going to make him pay for it, just like I said.”

Jenkins nodded.

“But first I’m going to get my son back.”

MONTGOMERY STREET

FINANCIAL DISTRICT

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

THE DOCTORS HAD strongly recommended against Sloane leaving the hospital, but he could not be deterred, just as Jenkins could not be deterred from accompanying Sloane to San Francisco. Sloane had wanted to surprise the Larsens, but Jenkins had convinced him to call ahead.

“Jake’s been through enough,” he said. “The last thing he needs to see is a confrontation between you and his grandparents.”

Sloane compromised by calling Frank Carter, Jake’s biological father. The two men had always had a cordial relationship, though Carter seemed uncomfortable around Sloane, which could have been due to any number of reasons, not the least of which was that Carter had never fulfilled his financial or emotional obligations as Jake’s father. Sloane sensed Carter to be even more sheepish than normal during their conversation, but he said he would try to arrange a meeting with the Larsens. It took more than an hour before Carter called back. When he did, he provided Sloane with a Montgomery Street address that turned out to be not far from the Transamerica Pyramid building in the heart of San Francisco’s financial district.

Inside the building lobby, Sloane confirmed the address to be an attorney’s office, the suite occupied by the Law Offices of Harper, Peters, and Cominos. Sloane stepped from the elevator into a modest reception area with dated furnishings and uninspiring prints hanging on the walls. He didn’t have to give his name to the receptionist; he could see Bill and Terri Larsen sitting at a conference table in a glass-walled room just behind the desk. Frank Carter had positioned himself at the opposite end of the table, and Sloane wondered if that was symbolic. At the head of the table sat a man in a button-down shirt, bow tie, and suit jacket who Sloane guessed to be either Harper, Peters, or Cominos.

Leaning on his cane and already beginning to feel exhausted, Sloane limped into the conference room, bringing the conversation to an abrupt halt.

He addressed his in-laws. “Bill, Terri.” Neither responded. “Frank.”

Frank Carter nodded. “Hi, David.”

The suit approached, hand outstretched. “Mr. Sloane, I’m Jeff Harper. Thank you for coming. Can I get you a cup of coffee or glass of water?”

Sloane declined.

Harper had a high-pitched voice and a ring of gray hair on an otherwise bald head. Sloane estimated him to be in his midsixties, about the same age as the Larsens, and probably either their personal attorney or a family friend. The man’s breath had an acidic odor Sloane associated with nerves. He’d smelled it before on attorneys during trials. Harper likely spent the majority of his time behind a desk and not litigating in the courtroom.

“Why don’t we all take a seat,” Harper said, though only he and Sloane stood.

Sloane sat opposite the Larsens. Harper returned to the head of the table.

“We have some things to talk about,” Harper said.

Maybe it was the throbbing pain in his leg and shoulder, but Sloane had already tired of the charade. “I don’t know you, Mr. Harper. We don’t have anything to talk about.” He looked across the table. “You can’t talk to me directly, Bill? Terri?”

The Larsens could barely raise their eyes from the mahogany tabletop. When they did, their focus found Harper.

“My clients would prefer that all communication go through me.”

Sloane sat back. “Fine.”

“As you know, the deceased set up a trust and placed funds in that trust for the well-being of Jake.”

When Sloane and Tina married, she had a modest savings account and the equity from the sale of her flat in the Sunset District of San Francisco, real estate she had purchased with the financial help of her parents. When she sold it, Sloane encouraged her to place the funds in a trust for Jake, to be distributed in installments at various points in his life.

“I’m aware of that.”

“And you are the executor.”

“I am.”

Harper handed Sloane a document, which he quickly identified as a personal note. “Tina obtained the money for the down payment for her San Francisco flat from her parents. This is a note requiring that she repay those funds.”

Sloane couldn’t hide the smirk. “You want the money back,” he said.

The Larsens did not answer.

“Legally—” Harper began.

“I’m aware of the legal significance of the note, Mr. Harper. I’ll write your clients a check within twenty-four hours.”

“There was accrued interest,” Harper said.

“I’ll pay it all: interest, penalties, whatever you want. Send me an accounting.”

Harper glanced at the Larsens, as if uncertain what to say but pleased by the result. He paused and cleared his throat before moving onto the next subject. “The deceased also had a last will and testament in which she expressed her desire that should anything happen to her, you would receive custody of and care for Jake.”

Sloane did not like Harper’s tone, which included an unspoken “but . . .” Something was wrong. “That’s correct. We were in the process of completing adoption papers when . . . when this happened.”

Bill and Terri Larsen raised their eyes and looked at him.

“But the fact is, Mr. Sloane, you did not legally adopt Jake, correct?”

“Are you cross-examining me, Mr. Harper?”

“I’m simply—”

“I just told you, Tina and I . . . and Jake, for that matter, agreed that I would adopt him.” Sloane looked to the end of the table. “Frank, we talked to you about this. You agreed.”

Now it was Frank Carter’s turn to divert his eyes.

“What is this about?” Sloane said. “What’s going on here?”

Harper cleared his throat but his voice quivered. “Legally, you do not have custody of Jake.”

Sloane leaned forward, palms pressed on the wood. “Legally? Are you kidding me? As compared to whom, a man who abandoned his son when he was three?”

Harper leaned back, creating distance. “The parents were divorced. The mother obtained custody of the child and moved to Seattle. The father did not abandon the boy; he was given visitation rights.”

“Which he never exercised,” Sloane interjected, “even during all the years they lived here in San Francisco. Frank, what the hell is this?”

“To the contrary, he provided the child with birthday gifts—”

Sloane banged a fist on the table. Harper flinched. So did Bill and Terri Larsen.

“The boy’s name is Jake. The ‘parent’ or ‘deceased’ was my wife. Her name was Tina. So do not refer to them again as if they were some hypothetical in a law school class, Mr. Harper. And do not insult me by trying to tell me how involved Frank was in Jake’s life. I know exactly how involved he was; I lived with Jake for the past two years, and before that I worked with his mother for ten. So don’t try to paint a picture of a doting father. I know better.” Sloane turned. “So do you, Frank.”

“There is no need for hostility, Mr. Sloane.”

“Maybe not for you, but I’ve put up with just about all I’m going to put up with.” Sloane directed his comment to the Larsens.

“Mr. Sloane, I asked you to direct—”

“I don’t care what you asked me to do.” He looked at Bill Larsen. “I tolerated your keeping Jake from me because I was in no condition to see him or to take care of him. I tolerated your cremating Tina and burying her without me. But I am not going to tolerate having a lawyer patronize me with legal jargon and a warped perception of reality.”

“Wait a minute, Mr. Sloane. If—”

“We are discussing the well-being of a thirteen-year-old boy who just lost his mother. The last thing he needs is to have his life further disrupted by removing him from his home and placing him in a strange house, in a strange city, away from his friends and school and everything left in his life that provides him stability.”

“We are all here in the best interests of the child . . . of Jake,” Harper said.

“If we all had Jake’s best interests at heart we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Jake belongs with me; everyone in this room knows that.”

“Legally, custody remains with Mr. Carter, his biological father.”

“Did anyone talk to Jake about this? Did anyone ask him what he wanted?”

The silence was telling.

“He wants to live with me, doesn’t he?”

“I don’t think a thirteen-year-old boy can judge what is best for him,” Harper said.

“How would you know? How many times have you talked to Jake? How many minutes, total, have you spent with him?” Harper did not respond. “I made him a promise. I made Tina a promise that if anything ever happened to her, I would take care of Jake.”

“Well, you got your wish didn’t you?” Terri Larsen spat the words at him, nostrils flared and eyes rimmed red by anger. “You couldn’t even protect her. You couldn’t protect my daughter, my baby. All of your celebrity and television appearances . . . all it did was bring the crazies into my daughter’s life. You couldn’t protect her. How are you going to protect Jake? Who’s going to watch him while you’re flying all over the country to mug for TV? Who’s going to protect him when another one of the crazies comes to kill you? When the crazy who killed her comes back? You’re responsible for her death.” She sobbed. “You killed her. You killed my baby.”

Bill Larsen put an arm around his wife’s shoulder.

“I told him we were a family,” Sloane said, almost slipping and telling them about Tina’s pregnancy but recognizing it would only be cruel.

Terri Larsen flung her husband’s arm off her shoulder. “Family? What would you know about family?”

“Jake loves me.”

“Jake thinks you’re the reason his mother is dead.”

Bill Larsen pulled back his wife, and this time she allowed him, swiveling her chair to the side, away from Sloane.

“That’s not true,” Sloane said, feeling a cramp in his chest. “You’re just saying that because you’re in pain and you want to hurt me. You want to hurt me? Fine, go ahead, hurt me. Say anything you want to me, but don’t hurt Jake; don’t do something that is going to hurt him more than he’s already been hurt. Maybe I don’t know family the way you do. But I know what it’s like to lose a mother. I lost everything; they took everything from me. They put me in a home with people I didn’t know; people who didn’t love me or care about me. All they cared about was the monthly check. I don’t want that for Jake.”

“Jake is not going to a home where no one loves him,” Harper said. “He’s going to live with his father.”

Sloane would have laughed if he had thought Harper was joking, but the expression on the man’s face indicated that he was serious. Sloane looked to Frank Carter. “You can’t honestly think that it is in Jake’s best interests to live with you.”

Frank did not answer.

“Frank?”

“Jake’s my son, David. I know I haven’t been the best father, but I want a chance.”

Maybe it was his comment about his foster parents and the monthly check, but suddenly Sloane put the pieces together, why the Larsens would seek to execute on the personal note when the money had already been placed in a trust for Jake.

“My God,” he said. “They’re paying you. They’re paying you to take Jake.” Nobody answered, their silence damning. “What kind of people are you?”

“There’s no need for insults,” Harper said.

“This is an insult,” Sloane said. “It’s an insult to me and it’s an insult to Jake. And I’m not going to allow it. I won’t let you buy your grandson. I’ll seek custody. And I will win.”

“You have no legal—” Harper said.

Sloane lifted himself from his chair, palms flat on the table. “I don’t give a good goddamn what kind of legal basis you think I have. I will get Jake. And I guarantee this—it won’t be you who stops me. Check it out, Mr. Harper. I usually win, and I’ve never been more motivated to win in my life.”

No one answered.

“Where is he? I want to talk to my son.”

“If you attempt to contact Jake my clients are prepared to take legal action—”

Sloane snapped, seeing only black. He stumbled forward on his bad leg and grabbed Harper by the lapels, lifting him from his seat. “Where is Jake?” Someone bear-hugged him from behind.

“David, don’t.”

Sloane swung an elbow, striking Frank Carter in the ribs and causing him to fall backward, toppling one of the conference room chairs on his way to the floor. Bill and Terri Larsen had retreated from the table to a corner near the windows, Bill using his body to shield his cowering wife.

Sloane pointed a finger at them, breathing heavily, feeling spent. “I would have been willing to work with you. Even after the way you’ve treated me, I would have done it, for Tina and for Jake. Not now. Not ever.”

the art institute georgetown, washington, d.c.

ANNE LEROY LOOKED up from her easel, initially thinking the hissing came from the old radiator at the front of the room before realizing the insanity of a radiator being on this time of year.

“Psssst.”

Peggy Seeley stood in the hall outside the classroom door. When LeRoy made eye contact, Seeley gave her a stern expression and motioned her to the door, as if she held an urgent secret.

LeRoy sneaked a glance at the instructor standing at the front of the room, hoping she hadn’t heard or seen Seeley, but the woman’s frown indicated otherwise. She was clearly perturbed by the intrusion. The instructor emphasized the need to maintain a serene atmosphere to foster artistic creativity, playing soft classical music “to entice the inner artist.” LeRoy wasn’t convinced the music was to inspire the students as much as it was to drown out the drone of the fans used to disperse the nauseating paint odor.

Stuck between a disapproving frown and a stern expression, LeRoy reluctantly rested her paintbrush on her easel and wiped her hands on a rag. Though she stepped softly to the door, some of the students exhaled and rolled their eyes, as if she had blown a bugle. LeRoy had taken the class thinking it might be fun while she sought employment, but that was quickly dispelled by the instructor’s serious demeanor and the other students’ self-indulgent attitudes. From what LeRoy had been able to discern over the past weeks, none were going to be the next Picasso or Rembrandt, but God forbid she be the one to tell them.

She stepped into the hallway and spoke in a hushed voice. “What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you,” Seeley said, also whispering.

“I gathered that. Can it wait? Why didn’t you call?”

“Your cell is off.”

“Because I’m in class,” she said.

“Well, I’m sorry but it’s important. Payne came to my cubicle today.”

“So?” LeRoy hadn’t given Payne much thought since the day she left. “What did he want?”

“Oh nothing, he just asked how I was doing and wanted to make sure I was happy.”

“You came here to tell me that?”

“No. What do you think he wanted? He knows you downloaded the report on magnets.”

“What?” LeRoy’s raised voice drew the attention of several students closest to the door. She pulled Seeley farther down the hall. “How?”

“Probably when he had someone from IT check your computer,” Seeley said.

LeRoy paced the drab white hallway, battered lockers on one side for students. “Have you ever heard of them doing that before?”

“No. But I also don’t care. I don’t want to get fired. I can’t afford to get fired.”

“Why would you get fired?”

She raised her voice again. “Because he obviously must think I’m a part of this, otherwise he wouldn’t have told me to tell you that he wants the report back.”

“Okay, okay, take it easy.” LeRoy sighed, trying to think. “What if I just get rid of it? What if I just tell him I threw it out?”

“No,” Seeley said, emphatic.

The art teacher stuck her head out the door. “Are we disturbing you?” she asked.

“I’m sorry,” LeRoy said. “It’s a family matter.” She pulled Seeley still farther down the hall as the teacher shut the door to the room.

“That’s exactly what you can’t do,” Seeley continued. “Payne said you had to return it.”

“Why? I’ll just tell him I never had it. How can he prove it?”

Seeley looked about to scream. “Hello! Have you been listening to anything I’ve said? The IT guys know you downloaded the file, that means Payne knows you have it. You can’t just throw it out. You have to give it back.”

“So how would he know that I didn’t just copy it again?”

“Anne, are you looking to get in trouble?”

LeRoy groaned, frustrated. “Fine, I’ll give the damn thing back. I hadn’t even given it any thought since I left. But if you ask me, there’s something else going on here, and he’s pissing me off.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.” She thought further. “But why is he so interested in a report that he told me not to finish? He pulled the funding; it isn’t going anywhere. So why is he making such a big deal about it?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Seeley said. “All I know is I don’t like being in the middle of it.”

“Well, I’m sorry I ever gave you the memory stick, okay?”

“So, you’re going to give it back, right?”

LeRoy scratched the top of her head, thinking.

“Anne?”