The Survivors (6 page)

Felix watched me drive away while Coop dug a pit in the petunias.

FIVE

I
couldn't stay angry with Felix. He cared a lot for Tori, for his old patients, and for me. By warning me away from Scottie, he was only trying to do right by all of us. I caught a last glimpse of him in my mirror. He was going back up the steps, steadying himself with the handrail. He'd gained weight lately, and I didn't like the look of his eyes, moist and bloody as rare steak. Retirement wasn't easy for him.
Pay more attention to him
, I thought. Take him to a ball game. The Orioles had a home stand coming up. After a long dry spell, the Birds were even playing some good baseball these days.

My apartment was a couple of blocks from Dupont Circle, a three-mile straight shot down Massachusetts Avenue. I rolled to a stop at a red light. It was a gorgeous evening, and I put the window down. On the passenger's seat, I had a stack of files. The top one was labeled with Tori's red felt-tip pen, in bold, curvy letters. Could handwriting actually be sexy?

I flipped the file open.
Edward Gaines
. Where did he get that name? And why the hell didn't he just call me up and say he wanted to get together? He hadn't listed an insurance company or an emergency contact person. There was the address in Mount Pleasant. He said he'd lived there for eight years. That wasn't likely a lie, not the way it came out so easily.

I set the file aside. A mockingbird chattered somewhere nearby; a silky breeze drifted through the car. This kind of evening was the best Washington had to offer. I glanced at Scottie's address again. There was another hour of daylight left. Mount Pleasant was an interesting neighborhood, always a lot going on. I hadn't been there in a while—maybe too long. As I turned east, I remembered Felix's warning. But what the hell. I was just out for a drive, right?

16th Street NW is the big north-south thoroughfare in Mount Pleasant. The address Scottie had given was a block over on 17th. I expected tidy row houses braced by an occasional apartment building, and that's what I found until I hit the last block. The street narrowed and pitched down, winding toward Rock Creek Park. The houses were scruffier, treed in. His was last in line, a pale-yellow frame house badly in need of a coat of paint. The park ran right up to the doorstep, a gloomy place of huge beech and oak trees with spindly hollies and dogwoods in the understory.

As I nosed into a parking spot, the curtain moved in the front window of the house. A woman was there—wispy, white hair, and round, thick glasses. I put her somewhere in her seventies. She was looking down the street and kept her head partially behind the curtain as if she didn't want to be seen.

From my vantage point, I could see all the way to the end of the street and beyond that the traffic flowing on Piney Branch Parkway. Something moved in the passenger's seat three cars in front. A hand came up and dropped, the way someone would gesture while telling a story. Shifting a little, I could make out the top of a head to go with the hand. There was another head on the driver's side. His eyes came up to the rearview mirror, and I ducked down.

It was Tyson Cade, and with him, Jamie Weston, the storyteller. She turned sideways so I could see her profile.

This wasn't hard to put together. They'd come here looking for Scottie. All they found was the old woman. They decided to stick around, see if he came home later. The woman was keeping watch on them.

I didn't want another go-round with the FBI, trying to explain what I was doing there. My business with Scottie would have to wait.

The street there was too narrow for me to turn around, so the only way out was past them. I stayed low in my seat and cruised by, then checked my mirror. Weston was laughing, talking a streak; Cade was staring straight ahead, as serious as the Pope. Good cop/bad cop, just the way they'd played it at my office.

Seeing that look on Cade's face reminded me of a question he'd asked. He wanted to know if Scottie had mentioned something called Braeder Design Systems. I'd said no, but the name seemed familiar. Now it came to me. Braeder was in the newspaper from time to time. Some sort of government contracts outfit. And there was something else about that name, something from way back . . .

A horn blasted behind me. I was out on Piney Branch, straddling both lanes. I swung over and gave the other driver a sheepish wave.

Braeder Design. I'd have to look that up when I got home.

I lived in a 1930s-era building that had been converted from a large house to six apartments. There was a small parking area in the rear. The rent for my spot there was almost as much as my apartment lease. Nights like this, it was worth the price. The Dupont Circle neighborhood was always buzzing with people, come to check out the boutiques and art galleries and restaurants. When the weather was fine, it was impossible to find streetside parking.

I wedged my car into my spot and got out juggling the stack of files and a bag of Chinese food. After I left Scottie's place, I stopped for carryout in Adams Morgan at a place called Cho's Temple Garden. I'd never been there before, but it looked clean and smelled fabulous.

An alley led to the front of the building. I was halfway down it when my phone buzzed. By the time I got to the front stoop and put the files down, the call had switched to voice mail. It was a number I didn't recognize.

I tapped in my access code, and the first thing I heard was background noise, rushing traffic. Then her voice, starting out confident but quickly losing steam. “Dr. Henderson, this is Jamie Weston. With the FBI. I, um . . .” I imagined her back in Mount Pleasant, standing outside the car. Maybe she and Cade had had an argument. “I wanted to apologize for listening at your office door. I was only wondering if you were going to call Mr. Glass. Still it was . . .” I thought she was going to say “unprofessional” or something like that. Instead she said, “really stinko.” I laughed at the phone. “Anyway,” she continued, “no hard feelings, I hope. Let us know if you hear from him. We only need to talk to him, give him a warning. Everybody can come out a winner.”

I put the phone away. There was a lot to think about there. They wanted to give Scottie a warning, so he was in trouble, not just a source of information. And her next line: everybody can come out a winner. There was tension with that. A lie? Or just uncertainty? Anyway, one thing was certain. They didn't have Scottie yet. But Scottie wasn't the only thing on my mind. I had this absolutely clear picture of Weston—head tilted, hair swept aside, talking and laughing. I realized I hadn't heard her laugh yet. Then I shook my head, wondering where that thought came from.

I held the bag of food in my teeth while I unlocked the building access door. There was no lobby, just a small alcove. Lucinda and Chelsea in 1B were blasting their stereo again, Barry White from the thump of the beat. They worked as policy analysts for the IRS. If their sex life was anything like the music they played, they must have been masters of stamina. I was glad I lived two floors up, where the noise didn't keep me awake at night.

The light at the top of the stairs had been out for two months. The other apartment on my floor was being renovated, and somebody in the construction crew had smashed the fixture. It was only a minor annoyance. I had my issues, but being afraid of the dark wasn't one of them. I was a lot more unhappy about the stack of drywall against the railing. It must have been delivered during the day. I'd have to call the landlady about that, or they'd start leaving tools and paint and trash and who knew what else out there.

I turned sideways to squeeze by and something crashed to the floor. I spun to the open spot at the end of the hall.

Dim light, odd angles. All I saw was a big man moving fast. He had his hand out to grab me. I shoved back, hard. It wasn't until I made contact that I saw the hat and, as that flipped away, the red hair. My hand hit flush on the top of his head, the wine-dark divot there.

Scottie dropped as if he'd been shot. Again.

SIX

I
t was Scottie's bicycle that had fallen and made all the noise. I shoved it away and dropped next to him. “Mmm,” he mumbled. He sat up, licking the corner of his mouth. “Is that General Tso's?” There was chicken sauce smeared from his cheeks to his chest.

“I guess it is,” I said with a laugh, and helped him up.

I collected my files and the rest of the food. The General Tso's was the only casualty. Scottie took a napkin and wiped his face and got his own things together. Along with his bicycle there was his backpack and a tablet computer. “You scared me half to death. Do you always sneak up the stairs that way?”

I handed him a set of earphones he'd missed picking up. “You were listening to music. That's why you didn't hear me.”

“Maybe.” He sniffed the air. “That stuff smells great. You going to invite me in?”

I was more than surprised to find him hiding there in the dark. Still, I had scared him off once already; I didn't want another round of guilt from doing it again. “Sure, Scottie, I'm going to invite you in. As soon as I can find my keys.”

They'd fallen all the way to the lower landing. He came with me down the stairs. “How's your head?” I asked.

He gave the divot a pat. “Couldn't hurt me with a bazooka. Steel plate.”

“Why did you fall down?”

“The look on your face. I thought you were going to punch me.”

“I almost did. How did you get in here?”

“Shhh.” He wagged his eyebrows. “That's a secret.” With a giggle, he took off up the stairs.

I sighed. That's just the way he would have answered a question like that when he was eight years old.

When I got back upstairs, he had his backpack over his shoulder and was holding the food. “Hurry up. I'm starved.”

I took the bag and said, “I need to know how you found this place. I'm not listed in the phone directory, and there's no property record for me. I do that for my patients—to keep some space from them.”

“I thought so,” he mumbled. “I know a guy who works for the DC government. He can get into the DMV records, car registration. That's how I got the address.”

“And the door downstairs? How did you manage that?”

“I waited outside until somebody came home. Some lady. She was talking on her phone and didn't notice that I came in behind her.” He grinned. “Can we eat now?”

I let him in.

The living room in my apartment is a big space with a bay window. I don't have much furniture, but there's a long row of bookcases. After he leaned his bicycle against the wall, Scottie started checking out the books. I went into the kitchen to sort out dinner.

“You wrote your name in these,” he called.

“Some of them.” Those were my old textbooks from school, marked so they didn't get mixed up with friends' copies.

“I like it—Cal Henderson. Do you want me to call you that?”

“Sure, I guess so. Do you like Scott or Scottie?”

“Scottie. It's always been that.” He came to stand in the doorway. The book he was holding was Carbone's
Sexual Deviance
. He had it open to a set of color photos. “Do you have patients like this?”

“Nobody who's admitted it. Here, the food's ready.”

He sat down, putting the book by his plate. I flipped it closed. “Those pictures aren't too good for the appetite.”

“I'll say.” He straightened the silverware and squared his chair to the table. I'd seen other obsessive-compulsive signs back at my office. He turned his plate so the rim pattern was at right angles to him, then dished out three equal-sized portions of food, arranged in a neat triangle. He had a lot of trouble getting his paper napkin settled in his lap, trying again and again and becoming more frustrated with each not-quite-right attempt.

Eating can be a particular problem for heavy-duty OCD sufferers, especially in a new place. He kept glancing at the book. He'd been interested in it, but now it was out of place, as big a distraction as a cat sitting next to his plate.